He gets in his truck to drive sometimes. He doesn’t plan to go anywhere, but he figures wherever he ends up has to be better than where he’s at. The leather seat in his truck is cold, and for a second he contemplates how much he really cares about the smell of cigarettes in the cab. He caves and decides to endure. Rolling the windows down, he sparks up a cigarette and takes a drag. It’s soothing and relieves some of the anxiety in his chest. It never really crosses his mind just how much of a toll these little rolled up papers are taking on him. He just knows he doesn’t care. There is so much killing him now, why worry about what might kill him later?

The cold stings his face as he drives down the road. The smoke from his cigarette swirls around inside and blows out. He turns up his music to get lost. Lost on these roads and lost in his mind. The melody dulls the sound of the ache in his heart and the hum of his tires are a welcome constant. His thoughts, like his truck, are racing. Flying a hundred miles an hour down a highway with no exit signs. He’ll drive until he runs out of gas or he finds what he’s looking for. Like the shadow of a translucent idea, the image of what he actually wants, eludes him. He believes deeply that he’ll know it when he sees it, but he’s terrified it’ll zoom right past his window. Gone in the cold wind, without ever offering him a chance to realize what he’d missed.

He flicks the butt into the wind and follows it up with another. Inhaling and exhaling to the tune on the radio. The next song starts and it reminds him of what he doesn’t have: her. It reminds him of the pain that started him on this race. The cold shoots through the window and he changes the song. He needs something to fuel his pain, something to compound it. He doesn’t want to feel better. No, not yet. He’s not ready to slow down. The rush he feels flying past the other headlights helps him feel like he’s still in the running. Not just a bystander on the side of the road. Someone just hoping they won’t get hit. He’s been hit before. He knows what it’s like to be the bystander.

Once, he wasn’t in this place and he was happy. Once, he didn’t need cigarettes to keep his heart from beating out his chest. He would spend his days with her, watching the cars flash by, pitying those who couldn’t appreciate the beauty in the lights. The cold didn’t blow in his face making it hard to breathe. Instead, the reflection of taillights in her eyes, took his breath away. Rubies have since turned to coal and his breath is replaced with smoke and nicotine. Now, he doesn’t have her. And he is the beauty in the lights… He lost her, and now he gets in his truck to drive sometimes.