Interstate 71 South

Inspiration hits me hardest when I drive so I take every opportunity I can to go to different places. Traveling allows me to get a different perspective of America and my own life. It gives me a chance to bond with this amazing country and see new places. This is somewhat frustrating though because when I do feel the need to write something, I can't. Well, I mean, I could but it would end in a car crash. So usually I have to remember bits and pieces and write them down later that night. My writing style is prose-y and whatnot but I also write articles about subjects that interest me as well. Not traditional articles, though. The prose is more of my internal voice trying to figure things out for myself. The articles are humorous and written mainly for education and entertainment. For me, pertaining to one style of writing is boring. I am not one for tradition.

So this week, I will give you three examples of my writing. This first one is relatively old and some people have read it before. It's driving prose. Wednesday, I'll put up an article about food that I wrote a bit ago but very few people read because it was not released publicly. Finally, Friday, I'll put up a brand new post with something no one has read. It will be driving prose again.

"It was the cause of America that made me an author."
From Thomas Paine's American Crisis Papers: No. 13

-Anthony


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Interstate 71 South

On the way down here, I hit a squirrel on the road. It was young, about my age, there was not a lot of fur in its tail. I thought it would move in time. I trusted it to move, like all other animals I have encountered traveling. It looked at me, made eye contact and thought of darting. From a distance, I was not sure what it was. At first it looked like a twig with a few leaves attached being lightly fondled by the wind. The movement became irregular, inconsistent with the surrounding weather. Then it looked like some sort of reptile, an iguana laying on the highway of northern Kentucky. Then the eye contact and a miniscule and futile fit of panic. A small thump. Through the rearview there was no blood. Only a cartoon-like dot of the squirrel falling lifeless from a prostrate position.

This was the first life I had taken on the road. I had been present for other road deaths. The largest being a turtle that Rita, Rob's nanny, ran over on the way back to his house from summer camp. The crunching was vocal enough to feel every molecule of shell splinter in the back of your throat. Rita was unaware. Rob and I walked back to the section of the road where it happened and found a red mess of what used to be a turtle.

This squirrel may be the largest animal that I have murdered. I thought I may have hit a rabbit in the fall. Nothing appeared in my mirrors. Then again, it was night.

On the road, as long as I am in control, I decide what lives and dies. I play god at the wheel. I can change the world around me with the subtle movements of my wrists and ankle. If anything challenges my judgement, if they feel like I must submit to their will, much like the squirrel, their lives will end.

Then again, anyone else in any other car can choose to end my life as well with a simple crash. This is a scary thought because I have met a lot of fucking stupid people that the government should not issue a license to. To imagine them operating a full ton of high speed engineering, sometimes coming at me head on, is absolutely frightening. Every time I turn the ignition, I put my life in the hands of least intelligent person this species has to offer.

This does not bother me this time. This is possibly the most pleasant this ten hour drive has ever been. Usually the last hour or so is the most tedious. Now the windows are down and I turn the Kentucky hills into a smeared portal of ancient dark greens and virgin wet lavenders. At this time, there is no other place as beautiful. Did you hear me, Henry? You can fucking keep Walden.

I drive with a purpose under the oil spill sunset towards home, flying like never before. I recognize the life that I have taken, sacrificed for this trip and honor it. When the time comes, it will decompose to become part of this beautiful land, part of everything, part of the universal consciousness. It will be recycled to become an infinite amount of things. Just how I am. I am composed of carbon and ideas from George Washington, pterodactyls, the forty-plus shots of vodka that John Bonham turned into puke, the pulse that he recorded that will beat as long as there are hearts to feel.

The speakers propel my car as it glides down the valleys. Given to fly. And the road listens. It twists into a bridge where I can make passage in the treetops. The road lines keep the beat of Cameron's drums. Cameron's drums keep the beat to Bonham's vision. Bonham's vision keeps the beat to my soul. The feeling is unexplainable. I am on my way home.

But the road has always been my home. It connects to everything I know and love. It connects everything to everyone everywhere. The roads are more than veins. It is a dimension. It is a home all its own. The pavement has always been there regardless of the situation, panic or pleasure. It understands what I am doing when no one else does, when my ideas seem irrational to others. It facilitates.

It has not rained but this evening, it appears wet. I smile. The golden honey sun hits my hand on the steering wheel, revealing small scars and scratches that have come from nothing important. What came from these? These marks were for nothing that will last. Insignificant scars from insignificant work. For now. It is not what is on your hands that count. Scars. Ink. Blood. It's what comes out of your hands that will change people's minds and then the world.

Wayne Coyne told us this weekend: Thinking should lead to doing.

In time, I will make new scars on my hands and even bigger scars in the world. Hopefully.

I pass a sign that stands as a reminder for drivers to stay safe. A bus crash. For me, dying on the road would be best. A head on collision that would shoot me like a rocket towards the sun out of the windshield, skidding on to the asphalt below. It would claim my skin and I'll grimace like never before as gravel becomes part of me. In a mangled pile of broken bones and a destroyed and halted future, my purple skull exposed to the blue sky, jet steams and radio waves, I'll smile a bloody, toothless, leaking smile knowing that everything was worth it. I'll slowly shut my eyes knowing that somewhere down the road, I am touching everyone I love, dying in their arms letting them know how thankful I am for all that they have done. Saying the wrong words because that love cannot be summarized.

Until then, I will listen to the radio and slide to my house and my bed. Titus Andronicus will yell.


From "The Battle of Hampton Roads"

And so now when I drink, I'm going to drink to excess
And when I smoke, I will smoke gaping holes in my chest
And when I scream, I will scream until I'm gasping for breath