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Nowhere

Published in the literary journal, Fine Lines, on February 10, 2015

Nowhere

She wears a chunky blue necklace every Monday to honor her brother’s death, and she often thinks about her two children, waiting for her to return home after a long day at school. She’s trying to get into the medical school down the street, but her grades are slipping somewhere between her son’s soccer tournament and gas prices. This is why she has a very unhealthy habit of biting her nails.

Or so I assume.

In reality, I’ve never talked to this woman. I don’t know her name, but I know her schedule, only because we have the same one. In the mornings, we get on the bus together, and we both get off the bus in the late afternoon. I think she asked me for the time once, but that could’ve been the boy who also shares our schedule on Fridays, so I don’t really know. In fact, I don’t know if she even has a late brother, a husband, or children. I don’t know what she is studying or why she bites her nails, but I feel as if I should from the sheer fact that I see her more than my closest friends. Under the irrational desire, I construct her life, and I don’t really mind that it isn’t real. At least it is something, and something is everything I’ve ever created while traveling on the road.

…

I can actually recall the precise moment in my childhood when I turned to the window. We were driving past Kanorado, and I was lying on my back, attempting to sleep in a vehicle I had never been able to sleep in. My brother and husky were cuddled up on the floor, while my mother slept in the passenger seat. My father drove, but he didn’t like speaking whenever the road turned dark. Now that I’m older, I know he was exhausted from the travels, but when I was younger, I emotionally accepted it as neglect and bit my tongue as I looked up at the sky. Since I was currently living in Atlanta, I hadn’t seen the abundance of stars in two years, and though I’d seen them before, I was suddenly fascinated by their return. The sky wasn’t the Space Needle, yet I was witnessing something far greater than any tourist attraction, and it had always been there. I only had to look around and see to feel the world around me, and it didn’t need a brochure to entice my fascination.  

With an imagination to guide my roadmap, I began watching the other travelers, the locals, the in-betweens. I wondered what their lives were like, whom they talked to, and what they talked about. I started placing myself in their car and pretending to learn from them instead of the books I read along the way. I would even take the information straight from the books and pretend I learned in their cars, knowing they were quite possibly oblivious to the information I had just read. Nevertheless, the blonde teenager driving by became my teacher, because I wanted a teacher I didn’t have. She explained love, while a mother of three explained discipline, somehow managing a word in while lecturing her kids in the backseat. If I were lucky, one might look over and make eye contact, and I would get a better look at their face or hear a clearer voice inside my head. If I were unlucky, I would barely have enough time to imagine what they were like before they sped up or disappeared off an exit ramp, and I would be left to search for another. But, even when I felt a connection, I knew that I was ultimately alone in the experience. I didn’t know them, they didn’t know me, and we knew, whether they reflected or not, we may never know, and I wasn’t okay with that.

I wanted someone to connect with outside of my constantly moving and traveling family, but I didn’t feel as if I had a way. We had moved over five times before I even got out of elementary school, and I had given up on the idea of staying anywhere. My home - although I had a physical one - wasn’t home to me. It was the road, and I was from there, whether I enjoyed it thoroughly or not.