Street lamps and their parking lot glow. Gray-black concrete stretching on for miles and miles of tamed wilderness. Blurred headlights leave streaks of white light to linger in glazed eyes. Engine whirring gently, spinning endlessly, going nowhere and everywhere all at once. This is his life, a continuous circle of travel, nameless places, faceless people. And this: this is all that matters, because it’s the only respite from the torture.

He was never smart enough, never strong enough, never good enough. Always falling short, always too weak, always second place. Never good enough, not for anybody, even himself.

Parking lots fused and seared together with endless white lines, lines that separate, lines that divide. The caravan from the truck, the mini van from the convertible, the good from the bad, the losers from the others, people like him from people like them. Bright yellow lights glare in the black lot, fighting the blackness to carve places for themselves. And there were times that the bulbs went out, the lights faded, but they always came back on again. For they were needed, they were valued for themselves. He was the broken street lamp, unable to turn on, too weak to fight the night.

Winding roads turn, dip, and tumble, nearly swallowed by the surrounding earth, suppressed by the strength of her mighty power. Yet they continue to live on, with the nurturing of humans and their tools. The thin asphalt a single mar in the perfect space. Then, there are the broken roads, caved in through age and the wrinkles of time, they crumble away, fading into the surrounding landscape, disappearing in the crowd.

‘It’s hard,’ he realized, ‘to be different, because it takes so much energy to fight a moving crowd. It takes so much courage to go the wrong way.’ But for him there was no other path to take, there was no other road to follow.

The road was speeding by, flying through his eyes. Passing cars and their glaring headlights blaze through his glazed look leaving paths of yellow light to blend with unshed tears. His head leans against the car windowpane unevenly, making his neck bend awkwardly. His half lidded eyes full of broken hope, gaze at memories no one but him can see, memories of veiled humiliation, shadows coveting hidden corners, and people he yearned to be. But this: this is all that matters, because it is the only respite from the torture.