Our Own Two Feet

He drove by, glancing at the stuffy duplex with the heart of a free man. The wet of February lay on everything and on the dirtied road he crept down. He had not been able to move as early as planned and that was almost unbearable. Two days prior a good sized snow storm, quite possibly the last, once again tucked optimism into its sinking mattress. A fear had come with the snow. The fear that he may not be able to leave as if the window of opportunity was about to shut. Fortunately, and quite possibly by divine forces, the next two days were warm enough to melt most of the new accumulation to puddles. The moving truck was packed tight, checked over once or twice for the long journey ahead. Some of the furniture and boxes didn’t stack neatly and would for sure tumble around during every turn. Many things were thrown in carelessly. Taking only what was needed and fitting the heavier things in first than by the end tossing in the lighter things on top. It did not matter how he left, only that he left. A fresh start some six hours drive from that gloomy abode. Thinking of that place as a prison made him into a convict by default. An escapee runs, but he was not running. Wasn’t he though? Perhaps six hours away lay another dingy cell ready to receive its next master. On the horizon, just another sentence. Another high-walled fortress garnished with razor wires.

Had he been any good at escaping he would have left his hometown long ago, and wouldn’t feel so confined. He fancied himself a would be escape artist, having thoroughly probed all possible exits. A prisoner that knew well all the weak spots in the outer wall or high chain linked fence. Knew them well, loitered about them even, but only mused. Pacing his asylum, planning accordingly to the conviction of which there is only two ways out of. Escape or death. If we do not escape we will surely die in some way. When the animal inside our belly awakens we must obey or else it dies. So too the longing to chase the setting Sun carries the same lethal dosage. Is it running than, he thought, if you merely trek in the other direction? Are we not always running from something than? Leaving and leaving quickly don’t host the same feelings.

He was on the road now, and the next mile felt more ecstatic than the last. He was going and not ever going back. An immigrant hauling his life in a sixteen foot panel truck. He thought of that poem, The New Colossus and the line that read “Mother of Exiles”. He too almost felt as an exile would, though it was his decision to go. More like an Ex-pat that had become disillusioned with his mother land. The land that bore him with its endless fields of feed corn and soybeans. The muddy river that ran swiftly and claimed countless lives apathetically. He was determined to not be swallowed up. “Am I a runner, a coward, a disgrace?” he pondered. “No.” answering himself. Rather he bemused a thought as some opportunistic Tiger whose keeper left the cage ajar for too long. A return to some wild unknown place that was comfortably familiar. Some place where he could meld into the surroundings, become an unknown, and by that to hopefully know himself truly. Perhaps he did run and decided to rescind that part of him which was tethered to that fertile land. Not to stumble away in panic escaping some looming, chasing fear but to run into the arms of some new providence altogether.

As the sun hung high and blinded him, he set the visor down. The moving truck rattled and bounced down the interstate, bound for the west. His wife followed closely behind with their two cats. A caravan, than, of exiles. Runners on a pilgrimage searching for prosperity and meaning. Six hours away there exists a man that was much like he but with a rekindled light about his eyes. Behind him would always be the shed carapace of the past. In front of him the road stretched long and touched the clear blue sky. He rolled down the window and felt the cool blast of air he no longer would breathe.