Sirens pass and my eyes move beyond their nonspecific glaze of the seat in front me and reach the concrete barricades of this stretch of highway north of Washington. They move across the roughly painted brown and speckled-white thick and glistening giant curb and beyond it to the Mormon church in the distance. Its spires and walls are pure as freshly fallen snow even against this white sky it stands out and makes the heavens glow a dingy grey. Gold crowns spire’s tips like arms raised in rejoicing and this castle floats atop the dark rich green forest like a fairy tale memory come to life or Disneyland.
This bus continues its hum and fall making its way to 95 north and I wander through my memory like a hiker lost amidst trails so familiar to my heart yet so far from recent memory that I don’t know where to turn. Fortunately, four the next few hours, I don’t have to make those decisions at all.
In fact sometimes the joy of public transportation, and in this case semiprivate coach, can be in that realization. That release. That eventual place we all fall into and actually enjoy — once the scratching and pouting subside — that place when adults rock like babies and babies often scream. The place where strangers often gather to be moved in their own way.
And brake lights overcome my vision as inertia moves us forward. 11 miles to 695 in 11 minutes. I guess the rain hasn’t really slowed anyone down after all. We pass a sign for Fort Meade. For lodging and an exit. And still this sky stretched grey speaks to me like an empty canvas weighing down upon my chest. My eyes now feel the pull and my eyelids acquiesce slowing in their blink heavy now with something. But I breathe in very deeply in search of any answers, and my eyes fall back up the road ahead of us. We seem to be flying now, cars gliding along atop water clouds made from the asphalt and precipitation. And skimming the heavens hung in grey and white and black besides we pass over the entrance of 695. Floating, flying atop the clouds in a foggy reverie.
Michael Vitaly Sazonov 