Lost at night

On one of those nights where you can see your breath better than your hand in front of your face a kid is walking on an empty road. His hands create and destroy, cause pain and happiness without a second thought. They are still learning to shape the world around them. His eyes lead a life of their own. They can see through the dark and feel a need to create light. But they don’t. They cannot speak, but only see.

A soft noise comes from behind growing louder. Then headlights explode from around a corner accompanied by the familiar sound of an over-revving diesel motor. The kid takes a step to the side of the road and then turns to see the belligerent intruder. As soon as the silhouette of the body line comes into view he knows that it’s a brand new Dodge Ram 2500 with the Cummins turbo diesel engine producing 306 horsepower and 610 ft/lbs of torque. The kid could tell the owner more things about that truck than the owner could even begin to make up. He knows the towing capacity, the transmission configuration, the amount of cubic feet in the cab, and even the current price for one share of stock in the DaimlerChrysler Company. The truck bed is filled with bright eyed high school seniors wearing letterman jackets and yelling random profanities. He nearly feels sick to his stomach when he imagines the truck in a local junkyard within the year due to an easily avoidable accident. They are so deep within their suburban fantasies that they don’t even see the kid on the side of the road. They are gone quicker than they came. “Ignorance is bliss” The kid says to himself and lightly chuckles.

He’s alone again, but he doesn’t care. He’s already in deep thought trying to understand how a man created the concept of a diesel motor in his mind, and then transferred the concept to his hands which molded it out of cast iron. There is something about metal and numbers that calms him and puts a smile on his face. With his mind racing and his hands still groping for something in the darkness, he keeps walking and keeps smiling. He smiles because he knows that some day he’ll make his own road and it will be bright and gracious.