Combat boots, camouflage suits, and inked skin tell stories before a word is spoken. Reddish-brown tinged, rusted trunk with a keyhole—imagining of memories it guards. What miles its seen. Cacophonous chatter and hushed secrets swirl together, voices rising and falling, forming an unseen melody. Some travel light, others are burdened— not by baggage, but by hearts weighted with longing. Forgetting. Regretting.
My eyes trace the skyline, watching the world unfold. Skyscrapers rise, time stamped in towering steel. City markers, road signs—a timeline written in pavement. Spaghetti Junction and winding paths— concrete morphs into rolling green as the city fades behind us, curves pulling us forward, bridges arching overhead, framing the open sky. First-time and long time riders, long and short term commuters heading to places unreachable by flight, where nearby is measured in hours instead of miles. Screens flicker with films, languages tumble over one another, accents thick and quick, slow and stirred—familiar and foreign. Pages crack open, thick novels devoured hands-free, stories traveling the highways beside us.
Drivers vigilant stewards behind the wheel, their steady hands and keen eyes charting the pulse of dusk and dawn, binding our shared journey with quiet resolve (at stops a bit more vocal) and un/spoken promise. A journey not chosen, yet drawn in design, God reroutes passage, the road intertwines. Motion is trust—no turning, no fuss, God and Greyhound know more than we do—like: leave the driving to us.
*Inspired by months of commuting via Greyhound after my car broke down and life unfolded in ways—unmeasured