A Decision To Delve Into The Unknown.

Open windows: the clicking of all the separate train cars linked together passing over the tracks by my house, where are they going? The conductor, what does he do all night? I'll bet he finished off that 60 ounce canteen of black coffee at the Washington border, and he's probably fiending for more by now. Halfway through Oregon, just passing through on his way to something bigger and probably better seeming. But how could he ever know if he's never allowed to stop the train and step off the tracks? I wonder if he's ever wanted to explore a town he's only going through. If, while he's pulling the lever to make that God awful noise that wakes people up in the middle of their dreams as he passes by their neighborhoods, he thinks to himself, 'what am I doing'? If maybe, just maybe, he wants to be in one of those beds being woken up by one of those sounds, working a 9-5 at some big tax attorney firm. Maybe he wants to wear a pinstripe black suit and shiny black shoes to work every day, and he wants to shave his face, damn it! He wants to sleep while he currently works, he wants exactly what he doesn't have.

Open windows: the hum of cars flying by my house on this little side street that I'd never expect to be so busy all hours of the night. Stopping and starting, turning, squealing, screeching, braking. Ignitions being revved in the cold, frost bitten hours between midnight and 6 am. People leaving houses, people behind, pets, for good. People coming and going. A single, solitary driver on his commute home from work in Redmond, driving 10 above the speed limit to make it home in time for the first ten minutes of Letterman before he passes out in his Lay-Z-Boy recliner, remote in hand. A Yukon full of high school kids, tires screaming around the corner a block up from my house because their best friend, who is currently occupying the passenger's seat, is late getting home for curfew. Yep, just as I expected it's 11:31: busted. A broken down old Saab literally chugging like a freight train up the slight incline that is Hill Street, a single mother with her three screaming kids strapped into carseats all lined up in a neat little row in the backseat. But... where is she going? Where is home for her and hers? Maybe it's someone else's home, someone who doesn't give a second thought to the beauty that hides behind that nest of unkempt, dishwater brown, permanently-tied-in-a-bun hair and un made-up face. The beautiful woman who cares for her three young children and is trying her best to stay afloat amidst the dark sea of an economic downfall and barely enough money to cover rent and groceries. But there she is, willing her little brown sedan to make it just five more miles, come on, please! Just so she can get home, wherever that is.