"Who would I have to become to thrive there?"

I drive because there's no place to go. I know nothing's open except inconvenience stores, and they're not really anything like destination resorts. The gas tank's full, milk supply fine. In the old days, I might head for a diner, grab a seat at the counter, and order a double batch of green chile-smothered hash browns while listening to the buzz and bustle surrounding me, having a little human proximity for breakfast. Us geezers are supposed to be up and out early, chasing lost youth or purpose, reading our Times, appreciating our waitresses. The diners have closed except for to-gos, and what am I supposed to do, eat in my car? Drive home with styrofoam sweating on the seat beside me? Nobody runs news stands anymore. The drive-thru window at Starbucks sucks. I drive in broad circles as predawn twilight silently slips into day.

I drive to get away from myself, that quiet, sullen voice in my head stops muttering when I'm behind the wheel. Almost nobody else seems similarly pained. The roads seem empty, sidewalks bare. I see a solitary man jogging shirtless in thirty degree weather and figure I'm better off than he, sitting in my heated seat, driving nowhere. I slip down what passes for Main Street, lined with ghost businesses. Two of the area's most revered dive bars shuttered, patrons barred from gathering to make their usual snide remarks and fleeting giggles. It's a riddle where they hang instead, for the nightlife was officially declared dead for the duration and I doubt that those patrons have ever known a viable alternative to their nightly revelry. It was work then beers but then the work dried up, and then the venue for the source of good cheer disappeared, too. Me? I'm just passing through.

Driving elevates me into The Observer, as if life itself was happening to somebody else. I make my improvised rounds as if I'd found some secret key to existence. After everything closes, after even the grocery stores delay opening until after the damned sun comes up, the early morning night owls like us find no alternative sustenance. We drive ourselves sane, again and again and again, varying our destinations between equally vacuous places. Rush hour won't come today. Seven AM traffic will seem just as sparse as a Super Bowl Sunday's, Monday through Friday, now that everyone's been ordered to work from home, where the heart was before the governor shuttered every alternative. Hand lettered signs hang illegible in every other window: closed until further notice. I notice each absence.

This world once carried a certain kinetic energy, an inspiring transfer of essential vitality, desire and obligation continuously running rampant. Somebody had an appointment to make, another, an errand to run. Everything seemed possible and almost likely, the choices might just as well have been infinite. Now, all that energy finds no convenient place to vent, the motive forces shunted and still. I know for certain that no video streaming service offers any antidote for that misbegotten vitality. Admit it, we were each addicted to a certain level of absolutely unnecessary convenience, anything we desired, any time of the day or night. Now, we dream of beans and toilet paper while trying to keep our distance from each other. Me? I drive because there's no place to go, every alternative response more a discouraging Great Unknown. Who might I become if I have no place to go, nothing pulling me out of my daily reverie? Who would I have to become to thrive there? I drive because there's no place else to go.

©2020 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #WhatNow?, #PureSchmaltz