2. Southbound
by Ryan Brosmer
I’m a sucker for nostalgia. And the drive home, back to my house from my parents’, it’s always the worst. I have two choices for getting to the interstate and both routes take me past some places with pretty strong memories. I’m feeling it right now. There’s a lump in my throat, like I’m about to cry, but no tears. I think this particular trip home is making it more difficult. I spent a lot of time thinking about death earlier, about my own death and about my friends. All of those friends still live here.
I’ve decided to take the back way to the high way; it takes me past my high school and past most of those friends’ houses. All of the traffic lights at each intersection are still on the same schedule. I could probably drive through here blind folded. At every red light I can predict whether or not I’ll be able to make it through once it turns green. There are five cars in front of me at this particular light. There are cars crossing east and west in front of us. After them both of the left turn lanes will get the green light. Then it will be our turn. Most of the time cars at this light turn right, towards the courthouse, or left towards the shopping center. I’m going straight across.
When the light turns green three of the car ahead of me take the right turn and the remaining two go left. The car behind me follows me straight through the intersection where the road becomes two lanes and he passes me on the left.
There used to be a field on the right hand side of this road, but not they’re building a dentist’s office. There’s a parking lot where stalks of corn used to grow. A little further up the road on the left is my high school. I don’t know why that gets me nostalgic. I didn’t spend all that much time there, especially the last two years, once I got my car.
I’ve been on the highway for 15 minutes now and it feels like I’ve been stuck in this cloud the whole time. My windshield is caked with red dust and it seems like it’s going to continue for a few more miles.
There used to be tress here, along the highway. I almost thought I had gotten on going the wrong way when I looked out of my window and saw there was nothing. I never really noticed them before, never enough to appreciate them, but I knew that they were missing. I knew there were trees there, tress that I’m not sure I ever really saw. There’s nothing green to be seen. Nothing resembling branches and leaves. Just yellow. Construction vehicles now create their own canopy of swinging metal, plowing through the red dirt. Everything has been reduced to a level plane, ready to be built upon.
It’s boring and it makes me tired. It’s not the fatigue I’ve been fighting from this, whatever, vitamin B deficiency thing. It’s a highway fatigue. Now it’s not just the road stretching out flat in front of me, but the land on both sides. I would roll my windows down and let the cool air in to keep me awake, but there’s all of that dust from the construction site, where the trees used to be.
I guess the trees used to block the Sun, because now, even through the dust, it’s shining into my car through the passenger side window. It’s not bright enough to be blinding. The dirt kicked up by the construction dulls even the Sun.
I could drive faster and get through the dust cloud. And maybe the wind would blow some of the red dirt off of my windshield. But I’ve gotten in the habit of going the speed limit, and with the dust obstructing my view I can’t see if there’s a cop anywhere around. I’ve gotten two speeding tickets in the last year already, and I got off lucky. I can’t risk another right now.
All of the other cars are passing me, and they’re all stained red. But I’m not sure if their cars are covered in the dust like mine. Even their tires, door handles, and even all the occupants of every passing car were a deep ruddy hue. But I don’t think they had a speck of dust on them. It’s just this red tint that’s covering my windows. It’s from the same red dirt that used to stain the knees of my blue jeans following an afternoon of digging holes in the backyard. There’s a lot of red clay here. We used to learn about it in science class, how it’s from all the iron in the soil.
I realized that my concentration had been drifting away from the road, and that I was now doing about 10 miles below the speed limit. I also began to notice less and less dust. The wind was now pulling it off my car and it wasn’t being replaced.
So now the trees are gone, the dust is leaving and I’m on my way back home. Somehow that makes me feel guilty. I have a problem with that sometimes. Guilt, that is. I guess it’s just a mixture of immaturity and a wandering mind. I had been feeling good about going back home, to my home, not my parents’. But now I feel like turning around, and not going back to my parents’ house, but stopping where the trees used to be. I’d leave my car on the side of the road; leave it to be buried under a pile of red earth. I’d walk past the towering construction vehicles and begin planting seeds. I’d start replacing each of the trees that had once been there. All the trees that I had never seen, but I had known they were there. I was feeling like I hadn’t appreciated them enough. It would probably be futile though, as I imagine a shopping center or some new “luxury town homes” are going to be built where they used to stand and my seeds would be crushed under the weight of development and never see the light of day. But I’d like to think that my seeds would persevere and one day a mighty oak would tear through somebody’s brand new kitchen, right up through the sink, shattering the light fixtures and plowing a hole in the floor of the elaborate master bedroom where some suburban couple was busy pretending like they were still in love. They would at once give up, humbled by the sheer force of nature currently tearing through their home, watching as it bursts through their ceiling, reaching for the sun. That would make me happy. I would probably be long dead and gone before such a tiny seed to come close to anything I was imagining, but then again it was all pretty ridiculous.
I imagine the couple would run downstairs and out their front door, and they would behold quite a magnificent sight. All of their neighbors’ houses has experienced equal disasters, and the trees were still reaching further towards the sky. As they grew they began to uproot the homes, pulling free the plumbing and foundation of each house, making way for their mighty roots to once again take hold. The houses would be lifted up into the sky, resting upon the branches of my trees. It would all be quite embarrassing I would like to think.
However, in an attempt to salvage their reputations within their very respectable social circles the resident would rebuild their homes in the sky, embracing their new life among the trees. They now had the very unique opportunity to live in he most exclusive neighborhood on the planet, because it was in fact suspended miles above the ground. They had been a gated community before, but now no gate was necessary, they could only be reached by helicopter. Therefore only those rich enough to own their own aerial transportation would be able to enter their community. No SUV, no matter how luxurious yet rugged, would be able to breach their dominion.
In a continued attempt to uphold their exclusivity the residents would build their own super market and country club among the trees. They would no longer have to venture out of their canopy community and mingle with the “ground walkers.” Perhaps after a few generations these people would become better adapted to their surroundings. Maybe they would become more ape-like than human, better built to live among the treetops.
And the funniest part would be that all these people had seen themselves as good, God fearing people, and had spent an ample amount of time making sure that their children were never victim to the blasphemous lies of evolution and how man came from monkeys. Now they would have themselves as proof of evolution by devolving back to apes. Or maybe they actually evolved, forward. I bet they would be more than a bit embarrassed. Maybe they would learn to laugh at themselves in the process.
