Rush Hour: A Personal Diary

I wake up in a sweat every morning at 5:25. Just a few more minutes.
--
ERNH, ERNH, ERNH, click.
5:30 - Time to get up.

6:10 - I walk out the door with a Coca-cola, Nutri-grain cereal bar, a Gatorade, and a sacked lunch. I can't see out of my back window for five minutes. The night is still thick in the air, moist and dark. I see other drivers' eyes through their blinding headlights behind me: some tired, some confused, some alert, some impatient. Me? I'm relaxed. I know I have a long way to go.

6:40 - I've reached the red sea of taillights. The tide goes in and out, and I let it slowly absorb my car until we're just a jellyfish: in, out, in, out, and steadily moving west.

6:50 - The ocean breaks, and a tributary turns north. 285: the perimeter. The stream is fast and furious; giant logs of steel move downstream at awkward angles. Swift fishes - both tiny and large - cut through the rapids. I try to slow down, but the pace picks up.

7:00 - The water slows almost to a standstill. The black asphalt simmers with congestion. The exits come slowly now, one at a time. The sign overhead reads "I-85: 18-23 MIN" every time.

7:25 - What once was a stream opens up into a floodplain, an entanglement of concrete branches hang overhead, each weighted down by literal tons of moving traffic. I admire the architectural splendor in the afternoon, but now I only see ahead: deep crimson, like blood, flows slowly for miles to the west.

7:40 - 6 lanes over. Bear right for freedom. GA-400. Relief. My knuckles have blood in them again.

8:00 - I'm home -- or it feels like it. 60 miles in nearly two hours. Today was a good day.

4:00p - Time to do it backwards.