long trip down a short road

(originally posted 10/16/2012)

I found myself driving down this country road that had grown up into a big strapping highway but it wasn’t fooling me. I knew a country road when I saw one. Sort of desolate and I got this exposed feeling as I drove down it. Not a lot of other cars. In fact, the last headlights I’d seen had come up from behind me fast. Odd thing was that they seemed to get closer together and then farther apart in my rear view mirror until finally they passed me one on each side. Once they were by me the left one went left and the right one went right and they both hurried off to wherever it was they didn’t come from.

It was with this mindset that I noticed off to the side of the road this large fenced in area that seemed to contain every discarded RV and motor home in the tri-state area. There must have been 30 or 40 of them like some Winnebago graveyard. These didn’t even seem to be a building or even an office nearby that would oversee the collection. Just this big RV holding pen in the middle of nowhere. Obviously I had to make a quick turn and take a closer look.

Later as I sat on the undercarriage of my overturned car I saw birdshit hit the ground only a few feet away from me. “Missed” I said in a voice that invited him to circle back and take another shot. It was a bit chilly out but I’m betting it was a full degree colder where the “Missed” hung in the air ever so briefly.

When people tell me that you can’t truly know anyone else or predict their behavior I have to laugh. We can’t even know ourselves if we want to just come right out and put it on the table. It’s funny that after generations of science fiction writers grabbing the tail and wagging the dog by telling us that robots will someday outthink us because they will lack emotions and emotions seem to cloud our judgment it turns out that the only reason we can reach any conclusions at all with the information our senses provide us is because of these very same emotions. I guess that makes the dog an iguana and the tail has broken off in their sci-fi hands. Robots can suck it until they learn how to ask themselves whether they can really know themselves and answer honestly no. Anything we do is based on how we feel at the time; happy, sad, horny, mad, etc, etc. Different emotions will result in different reactions to the same circumstances. Throw in chemicals or other foreign stimulus and we can act completely different in any given environment.

For instance, when the tires stopped spinning entirely and an eerie silence fell over Winnebago graveyard it was only the bizarre set of previous events that would have me looking at the metal hulks inside the fence and feeling envy. I was outside while they were inside and suddenly I felt a great need to be inside so I climbed the fence.

Once inside I stared at the largest of the motor homes. A real giant. A giant motor home I was outside of. I suddenly felt the need to be inside it and walked over and found the door handle unlocked.

The radio didn’t work. I was really in the mood for a Wolf Parade song. Turning the old-fashioned radio dial and hearing nothing made me feel like all the music in the whole world was gone.

Then I saw an old dirty sleeping bad in the corner of the RV. I didn’t like being outside of this sleeping bag so I immediately got inside of it and zipped it all the way up.

I suddenly thought to myself “They’ll never find me here.”