Mundane

Driving home from Stacey's apartment. The sky is pink and orange and I'm in workout clothes. My feet probably stink. I need to get gas and go to my regular spot like a fish that knows a good coral reef. Some men pull up in a truck behind me. Their car is about 40 years old and it sounds like its on its last legs.

They are smiling, and I can see their teeth flashing white in the growing shadows. Across the street some fat children are running around their parents, who are seated on a bench. They have the energy of the desperate--every moment counts before they are shuttered away under comforters with flowers and their favorite toys, before they are banned from all that is exciting and dangerous in the world.

The DJ on the radio isn't funny. He's trying though. Maybe someone, somewhere is laughing and thinks he's the best radio show host ever. I have to turn right before the traffic light changes , before the rest of the cars catch up with me and keep me from the curvy roads home.

I feel like I'm driving faster than I am, that my car has a momentum borne of emotion, when I'm really just tired. Maybe I'm teetring on the edge, just like those children. Except I welcome being shut in away from the creeping dark and blinding headlights.

All I can think about is a shower and my daily ritual will be complete. I'll have pedaled to nowhere for half an hour on level 5 so that I can come home and shower off the day, wipe clean the worry, the politics, the fatigue.

There is something sacred in the mundane. The children will remember only a blur of that moment, when I saw them so carefree. The men in the truck will keep driving; one of them will go home to family, another to live alone. They will forget the sunset.

And I shared just one, mundane moment with all of them, that I will hold on to for life.