Drive

The funny thing about roads, I realised driving back from a little side trip after a long day at work is that most of us don't realise how much they're like canvases, or pages in a book. Every tyre tread is like another line of ink drawn across its surface, writing down a particular car's story, the little nicks and bumps on each tyre setting down a little world of its own. Sometimes it feels like there must be entire worlds down there. Worlds of love, hurt, laughter and pain.

It's one of those nights again, when something's trying to tell you somebody.

There are some roads I haven't driven on for awhile. Not because I have anything against them, but because they lead to places I don't really go to anymore. These are normal roads, like any other. During the day they're indistinguishable, but at night and when the light is just right the stories come alive, as if driving on them places an invisible grampohone needle on every groove and tread mark, and the reel plays. Not on the windscreen (that would be too horror movie-ish) but directly into the mind's eye (through the wonders of quack psychology!) and there it stays, not quite out of view but there in the corner of things.

So you remember. This is the road where you laughed, cried, argued, made up, kissed, held hands, (very nearly) made love, felt the tremor in that person's body that somehow told you this is right, rejoiced, accepted and finally, sent away. These and other roads are silent observers, there when you first etched those lines (that was a silly argument wasn't it, you turn to ask but the seat's empty) and they'll still be there when you're a pocketful of dust and bones, and the bugs have picked you clean.

The playback ends when you make a turning and sometimes another reel comes on, on cue. Sometimes it just ends and the remainder of the feeling, of the memory hangs in the air like a million gossamer threads (angel hair, you think), almost tangible but then you exhale and they vanish, waiting for the next time you drive by.

You hope the roads are ReWritable media. You know, for those new memories. And maybe they are. Or perhaps they never were anything more than blank gritty grey slates that do nothing more than jolt the little basket inside your head.

You know, the one with the little silver eggs.