Lack of Movement and Other Freeway Principles
Freeways are engineered to completely trap you in your miserable state and give no chance for escape. On either side a steep embankment of dirt topped off by a fifteen foot high sound proof wall. This makes the view of an entire trip effectively the same the whole way through. The worst part of course is the traffic. Six lanes on either side of solid concrete, metal and glass reacts to the sun like a solar oven. Not to mention, everyone's got their air conditioner on. Waves of heat could be seen rising off the scene of cars, concrete and
annoyed drivers.
Milo sat in his car and surveyed the rush hour traffic. He felt like he had been trying to remember something. He knew he was giving David a ride. Before he gave it any more thought he began to realize that the A/C was not turned up nearly enough. Leaning forward in the driver's seat, he put the A/C on full blast. The fan whined and quickly died out. He slammed his fist into the dash. Sitting in the passenger's seat Milo's friend, David, struggled with the crank while rolling down his window. The radio and all of it's audio abilities had been stolen months ago. Then simultaneously Milo and David slumped back down into their seats as if resigning to the heat.
Milo looked over at the opposite traffic which was also completely stopped. It made him feel better that it didn't matter where his destination was, he'd be in traffic either way.
"You know why rush hour takes up like the whole day?"
Milo was engrossed in thinking about the traffic when David addressed him.
"Huh?"
"All this traffic. You know why it's like this?"
"Are you gonna talk about the buses buying the trains again or something?"
"No I wasn't even thinking about that, but that's what happened. That was all to make people buy cars instead of using public transportation. And that was the tire companies. But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about rush hour traffic."
Milo had begun to really feel the heat. His car was in the third lane, and he was completely surrounded by running motors. He imagined the exhaust piling up on the concrete until it reached a level that was above the heads of all the drivers. Then he imagined the he could begin to feel it suffocating the breath out of him. He moved his tongue around in his mouth. He could taste fossil fuel.
He had heard David's rant enough times that he would even notice when David sometimes messed up the order of the main points. He didn't really care and let the whole thing just kind of go over his head. Then as he recalled the last time that the two had this conversation he realized that he could not remember when the last time was. In fact, he felt like he couldn't really remember ever hearing it at all. He ignored this feeling as some kind of fluke. He knew he had heard it before, and that was enough.
"Yeah. Well anyway, you see all the soccer moms get out of the house at like 2:30 to go pick up the kids and go to soccer practice and whatever. So they're all out there. Then at like 3, or 4 all the part time parents come home. So at like 4:00 all these damn people are already here. Now add these overworked office drones at like 5:30. You know they've been at work all day, they're tired, their angry. I mean like road rage is any surprise? So this all ends up with this.. that were in, at what is it.... 6 now? See and traffic won't really move till like 7:30. You know?"
"Yeah. What's your point?"
"Well.... nothing really. Just traffic observations I guess."
Just then the car ahead of them inched forward a few feet. It was the end of a slow chain reaction that began hundreds of yards ahead of Milo. Some other driver suddenly realized that he could inch up a few feet, and so did every subsequent car behind him. It was the slow stop and go that takes constant attention and drains the joy out of driving, and the life out of the driver.
Milo realized they were still far from where they were going. From the signs he could see they were just passing Crenshaw. At this rate it'll take at least an hour just to get to the 405. He swore at the traffic and violently threw himself back into his seat. He wiped the sweat from his face and he was disgusted as he found he could not only taste the exhaust in his mouth, he could feel it mixed in his sweat.
David wasn't quite done with his rant.
"I was thinking about computers, and shit, you know like how they can do repetitious calculations and stuff?"
"Uh...yea..?"
"I think they should write a new constitution."
"What?"
"You know the constitution..."
"Yeah, yeah..."
"Well I think they need a new one. You know?"
"Uhh..."
"It wouldn't be that hard. I even have it figured out. If you got everyone to write like one thing that they thought should be in the constitution. Then they could be narrowed down to the major themes..."
"Major themes?"
"Yeah. There'll be like certain stuff that a lot of people will write. So then everyone could just vote on them, and it'd take like three fourths majority to pass. Or something and that would work out. I think."
"And you just came up with this?"
"Well not all of it just now."
"Okay. Well first I think your working model of that average person is grossly optimistic. Secondly what is the point? No one would really be willing to do all the work what you just said would require."
"Well whatever. That's what I think."
"Thanks... for the.. uh.. whatever."
Then the traffic completely stopped again.
"Fucking why?? Why are we stopping? It was just going... Fuck."
Milo looked around and noticed the other drivers were looking at him. He sheepishly tried to hide in his car. Outside the windshield of the car, the sun was just beginning its fall into the ocean, but Milo and David could only see the purple, pink, and orange of the clouds. The palm trees and roof tops peeking over the sound barriers surrounding the freeway were blocking the view.
As Milo looked out at the sunset he really wanted to be at the beach. He thought about when he had been happy, a few months ago with his ex girlfriend. The sunset reminded him of when the two of them had gone to Santa Monica after getting burritos at Tito's Tacos. But really it seemed like the other memories. He could not remember what it had been like to be happy on that day. He knew he had been happy, but he had no idea what that meant. Milo began to realized that maybe he couldn't really remember anything. He just thought he did. And this new self doubt began to form, but before it could become a full thought and fully recognized and dwelt upon, a more well defined and imminent situation arose.
Underarm sweat is the worst kind of annoyance that regularly issues from the body. Except for ball sweat. Both forms share their means of torture. Sweat builds up in a hairy area. This causes itching. To avoid this Milo kept mopping up sweat in the underarm of his shirt, but as everyone knows sweat stains can
only get so big. After that the second weapon is unleashed, the drip. As gross salty, warm, sweat builds and the pit stain can retain no more, the sweat begins to drip along the body. Milo was suffering from this occurrence.
David began again.
"I had a really weird dream last night. I was sitting on the sidewalk and this person came by, I can't even remember if it was a guy or a chick or what, but they have this dog. It's this little uh a welsh something, I think it's called....
"A welsh corgi?"
"Yea yea one of them. Anyway this little dog is walking by, and I always like that kind of dog so I ask if I can pet it and it's really friendly and stuff. So I'm sitting on the sidewalk with this dog. I can't remember what happened to the owner, they're not important anyway, when this collie comes walking by, and remember my old dog Elvis?"
"Yeah."
"Well he was a collie, so I like collies too. Anyway I'm like 'hey collie come over here' you know?" Milo nodded as he half paid attention to the stopped traffic and half paid attention to David's inane rambling. By this point Milo's pit stain had reached critical mass and he was trying to keep it from spreading and becoming a pit to waist stain, and this was taking up most of his attention.
"So this dog comes over and the two of them are buddies I guess cuz they get along. But after awhile I start feeling kinda tired, which is weird because it's a dream. And right then when I start feeling tired I realize I'm dreaming. Isn't that weird?"
Milo groaned and tried to air out his shirt while answering David. "I mean a little. But it's happened to me before."
"Yea me too, but still. Anyway I don't want to get up because these are cool dogs, and I'm having fun so I just decide to keep dreaming. But somehow in the dream I fall asleep. As I'm falling asleep the dogs fall asleep on top of me. And then I wake up, but I don't wake up. I wake up in another dream. Thats fucking weird, right? But not only that, in this dream I'm fucking buried alive, and I can't breathe and I'm like freaking out and shit cuz I can't breathe. So I'm really confused because I don't know what'll happen. If you die in a dream do you like die for real or something? Like I don't know so I'm freaking out."
At this point Milo was becoming interested in David's story. Mostly because it was the most interesting thing going on at the moment. "So what'd you do?"
"I fucking suffocated to death in my fucking dream, man. I fucking died in a dream."
"Well I mean you obviously are okay. I mean you're here right now. And I'm pretty sure this isn't your dream."
"Yea I mean if you look at it that way it was cool. I mean yea I woke up and I wasn't dead. It was weird though. I woke up feeling like I knew something or had seen something. It reminded me of what you said it was like when they put your fingers back on. When you lost all that blood. I remember going to see you. That was like three years ago. Do you still remember what happened? Like what you dreamed."
Milo didn't like to talk about that part of it. Three years ago he had severed three fingers and most of his wrist. He lost so much blood that the doctors were afraid to put him under complete anesthesia. They were afraid he wouldn't wake up. They told him that when he woke up after the operation he was screaming and threatening to kill everyone in the room. But Milo knew what happened in the dream.
He knew because three times has he seen the dream come true in real life; a car crashed while he was a passenger, the dropping of his favorite plate, and his neighbor's cat was eaten by a coyote. The more Milo looked back at these memories in order to find the source of these feelings, the more he began to realize he was entirely unable to remember anything. Much like a dream Milo felt something had happened, and he could even describe an event, but he himself could remember nothing. Upon realizing that this indeed may be true,
he became confused and somewhat afraid. He tried to remember things. His childhood, his grade school, his best friend as a child, his mother, but all of these things came out the same. He could describe things, his best friend was a freckled kid with green eyes and brown hair, but Milo could not really remember. His mind's eye could never show him the face of his memories. He could not even call to mind a clear image of his mother. Milo could not tell if this was just how things normally operated and he'd never noticed, or if was something
particular to his experience.
"Dude, do you remember?" Milo had spaced out, and was suddenly snapped back by David's question.
"Of course I remember...."
