The Long Drive

Sometimes you marvel at your fortune, and muse at how perhaps all the time alone has somehow paid for these few glorious moments of togetherness. You wonder how much love you've earned, when it will expire, and when it will be time to pay again. These are the type of thoughts you have as you drive the midnight highways, the dark roads, the well traveled tracks of your thoughts. You want her to wake up, to distract you from yourself, to maybe take a turn at driving. You are almost home.

With effort, you return your thoughts to sunny meadows, to sideways smiles, to effortless conversations of understandings. Yes, she understands you, and you her, and it seems like a miracle on the order of loaves and fishes.

With no shame, you consider how you stole the "loaves and fishes" line from Kurt Vonnegut, plucked from the same collection of short stories she found for you at a used bookstore in Montana. Vonnegut is your favorite author, and hers.

You begin building your case, ready and willing to prove to anyone that you're perfect together, eager to demonstrate how even your flaws are exactly in tune. Your demons of fear, insecurity, loneliness, and anxiety are mirrored in her eyes - yet instead of procreating, they find sympathetic ears and keep busy talking. Yes, it's all perfect, the stars have aligned, and the signs are as numerous as the billboards which litter the Texas highways. Just look at the uncanny amount of consonants and vowels your names share, and it all becomes clear: you were made for each other.

But something about perfection bothers you, and often you desire the world go up in flames, even if it engulfs yourself and your loved ones.

You glance at your peacefully sleeping passenger, scanning her for flaws, any kind of behavioral abscess.

Eureka! Sometimes she'll play the music she loves repeatedly, draining it of it's mystery, it's spontaneity, it's charm, and getting it hopelessly lodged in your brain. You consider this a moment, and decide you would use this against her if it wasn't so damn cute.

You scan her again, scalpel in hand, but a glowing green sign interrupts: Rest Area - 2 Miles.

She wakes and smiles at you, and you can't help feeling guilty. Together, you search the dark car for blankets and crawl into the short grass, trying to balance the distance between smelly restrooms and noisy semi-trucks. You curl up indecently beneath an oak and sleep.

The morning light brings new clarity and as you pack the truck she glances over at you, unbathed, having never worn make-up a day in her life, glorious in her natural beauty. You see love in her eyes, and don't know what you've done to deserve it. Perhaps you've paid for it somewhere down the line. Perhaps you'll pay again. But right now, perfection don't seem all that bad, and all she wants is a cup of coffee, and you are eager to oblige.