One For The Road

I’ve heard it said many times in many ways that life is a road, or a journey. I’ve heard it spoken of as a long school field trip in which you’re supposed to see things and learn from it.

One strange thing about this road of life though is that you can only travel one way on it. In a way, it’s more like being stuck on a moving sidewalk; you can move around a little, like side to side, but you’re still always stuck moving in the same general direction.

Even stranger though is the fact that we humans try to liken something like life to something more comprehensible. We try and take something as vast and varying as “life,” with all the extremes and also the big boring parts in between, and make it sound as simple as “a road” or “a journey.”

If life really is just a road, does that make the occasional good times straight shots down a hill when the driving is easy? Or does it make all the tremendously shitty parts into “potholes?”

Somehow I can’t quite buy that.

Yes, I’m sure it’s a great chunk of revelation, but coming from someone who spends the majority of his waking hours driving on roads I’ve come to the conclusion that a road is something that life is not.

I must say though, that I wish life really WAS more like a road. That way if I fuck up and miss a turn or something, I could turn around and go back. If I hit a spot where I was all happy and content and had a nice drive, I could take it slower or even do it all over again. I could also drive faster through the shitty parts of the road or the uneventfully boring parts (I’ll just call those parts “Iowa”).

Amazingly, now that I think about it, one thing that makes driving and life more fun is alcohol. Hehe, it’s the one constant.

What kind of road is a road with no cops though? Yeah, I’m thinking, “A good one.” Yet that’s a bit unrealistic. On the road of life I think the “cops” would be regrets. Maybe they’d be things that were done, or things that should’ve been done that weren’t. Either way, it’s amazing how they can stick to your ass and follow you better than any police cruiser.

The thing about police, and I suppose regrets too, is that they always get you in the end. Even if you put up a good chase, even if you think you got away, they always pop up on you when you aren’t expecting it, and then you’re their bitch to do with as they please.

So back to the alcohol thing, perhaps the best course of action is to just be like the stupid dudes on World’s Scariest Police Chases. Get wasted and grab a few for the road, then just go wild and when you’re about to get busted then you know your time is up. Finish up the beverage and make good use of an overpass support beam or something.

Fucking fall.
Fucking me.
Fucking police so close in my rearview.
Fucking the pain in my neck from sleeping weird.
Fucking the bugs on my wall.
Fucking the lottery for being so hard to win.
Fucking everything.

I just need one for the road and…

*
“The sky was dark this morning
Not a bird in the trees
And silence hung suspicious and anxious
Like a blanket-covered scream
*
…And I cursed the sky and begged the sun to
Fall all over me.”
*
Fuel