Driving at Night, or, How I Fall in Love with Strange Thoughts · 9:42pm Jan 22nd, 2018
Driving at night is one of those things that you have to experience to understand. Now, before I begin explaining, I must first alert you to the fact that I decided to sign up for both 8am and 8pm classes, clearly in an extraordinary act of masochistic experimentation. Because of this, I can be found merging around anxiously on the interstate at odd hours of the day and night.
This naturally means I end up driving before the sun gets up, and long after it sets. Driving in the dark is an almost religious experience. Cars become outlines, and outlines become the bright blur of headlights that leave spots in your vision long after they are swallowed by the all-encompassing darkness. Street lights flicker and pop out as you get close to them, almost in an act of defiance. Your headlights illuminate patches of road a few feet in front of you, but little else, and you're left imagining what the landscape looks like around you. If you're fortunate, you see neon signs blasting businesses at you in swatches of enthusiastic color. The brake lights in front of you dim and brighten as their driver and mastermind decides to drive ten miles per hour underneath the speed limit.
Here is where the puzzle kicks in. Why, when the car in front of us decides to drive agonizingly slowly, do we hesitate to pass them in the dark? I've seen it again and again. Cars bunch together in little cliques of light as they barrel down the highway at speeds faster than any living creature can run. It's always a little sad to see one of the group peel off towards an exit. I can't help but wonder who they are, and where they're going. Are they headed home, or towards a night job? Perhaps they have a lover, and have just traveled from an airport to see them. Or, perhaps their journey hasn't ended, and they're simply resting before continuing on their way through the lonesome dark. I wish I could ask them, but they slow down and I continue onward to my destination, filled with more questions than I have answers.
Some things you don't need to why, you just need to know that they are.