Patterns

By Michele Chun 

You are on a road trip.  It is the middle of summer and there are no shady trees on the Interstate and it is very hot.  You fall in and out of sleep.  Your sweat soaks through your shirt and stains the back of the seat.  You are tired of the person you are driving with and you hand him a piece of jerky, hoping he will continue not talking.  The sun is in your eye.  Your feet burn when you raise them up to the dashboard.  It is easy to believe that you will most likely die from this heat before crossing to the next state and no one will find your body for days.  The landscape remains still and quiet.  The mountains are a consistent feature of this stretch of road.  You close your eyes and almost fall asleep again. 

The person in the driver’s seat calls your name.  You open your eyes.  He tells you that he’s been thinking, that being on the road like this made him think.  And he has some news for you that might be shocking but please don’t overreact because he knows how you do that sometimes.  Are you even awake?  You sit up to face him and wipe the sweat collecting over your brow.  Yes.  Awake.  You notice that the birds flying over the peaks are going around in circles.  He clears his throat. 
 
Afterwards, you turn back to your window.  You find that you can look harder than you were able to before.  It suddenly seems amazing, that the sky can easily engulf those two birds soaring through the air, that the mountains can continue to be there, not moving and not really doing anything but being there.   

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