overpass

It is a tender traversal, an easing along painted asphalt, an abridgment of effort where will meets the wit of the machine. I drive as music plays, I turn between the tangle of metal and intent that casts these livid chains along the streets. I follow roads I have traced before there was anywhere to go. Now that I am going nowhere, every bit of labor is rote. The work of this frustrated and altruistic tribe allows me the privilege of utter thoughtlessness. The work of this dense slab of culture has allowed me to all but dissolve.

I err in my errands, I slow enough so that time gathers around my shoulders, and intentions jingle in my pockets beside my keys. I slip through the tides of self referential shoppers and the smug victims of some future crimes. The litter of pop music spilling down the aisles. The roar of hushed clusters of confidences spoken into tiny bits of wire and bandwidth. The plodding regularity of want and need confused forever, the ritual becoming reason enough. I float along with the other wastes of this world that made me, changed a thousand times, and passed me by.

The tangle of traffic, the smooth jerk of impulse and agreement as we wind up and down these maps. The crease of light that commands us all to move or halt. The inklings that allow us to know who will merge and who will stop without reason. The guesses that mingle with experience to make prophets of us all. It is all so familiar that contempt comes easy, built on myths of worlds that never were. The ancients we admire for the aimless wonders built for deluded kings, while we are immersed in works so wise and clever that we may as well be suspended upon whispered verses of raw magic. We rise on tons of wisdom, written down so that we need never think again.