Chapter 9

What seemed like an endless day finally ended. I was on the bus, coming home from work, traveling over the bridge that I so often reference here. The sun was setting, the windows were open, and a fresh spring breeze was blowing in through the open windows. The bus was full, so I had to stand in the side door exit stairwell. Seated in front of me was a well dressed man reading a copy of Jack Kerouac's, On the Road. The book was open on his lap and I could clearly read the beginning of the ninth chapter, where Kerouac describes the way a figure looks in a rear window as you drive away from it. The way a person sinks on the horizon until they finally wash out amongst the background as they get farther and farther from reach. I looked up from the book and out the front window of the bus, towards a city that was getting larger and larger as we approached its concrete comforts. I thought about the last year, and in that moment realized that it had all been summed up in that little collection of phrases sitting on a well dressed man's lap.