Nightfall on I-90

Suspended, a thin stroke of railroad splits the cityscape. From the right, a train cuts across the sky, purple light blinking through each window. No stars, no clouds, nowhere else to look. Sitting here, stuck between an overly cautious minivan and a looming semi, as my lungs fill with fumes and the dry air of late February, for a few moments all I feel is bliss. To a point. The point where exhaustion slips into euphoria. Inertia into deluge. Silence into hysterics.

I let out a small laugh, and the moment disappears. The train is long gone. I'm a few yards forward, inching toward that brushed line in the sky, now more of a smear beneath the moon. To withstand the weight of so many bodies. To support all of those souls, straining against the purple light. Is there a limit to the burden? Is there a burden at all? A fresh wave of weariness washes over me, as I stare through the rear window ahead. A screen beams out from their dashboard, showing the red, immobile route all of us are traveling, bound together for another fifty six minutes. It steadies me.

It took at least two years behind the wheel for me to stop fearing it. Too many unknown variables. Slippery roads. Sloppy drivers. Directions meant nothing; North meant East. Still does, in all honesty, in many cases. I turn a corner and I lose myself. I don't know names of streets, but I know the potholes that pockmark them. I don't know major intersections, but I know the teahouse that sits at the edge of one. The person behind the register knows my order and my face. Iced, green tea, raspberry. Tall, flushed, breathless girl.

What a long winter this has been. Refreshing, isn't it? (Who am I kidding?) But even still. Thank god or goodness for the snow, for the chill, the darkest hours, the writing in the sky. There are still so many messages to descry, piece apart, take together. A solitary moment in a car on the road at the edge of dusk. What a windfall. What a night.