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There's something with driving that I'm always hard pressed to define - when I do, it's always cliched, never being able to convey the meaning I want to. Everyday, I see the gorgeous orange lights curving their way across the wide empty toll road, and I can't help but wish I had a car to take to the road. A car not just to drive, not just to speed across the tarmac, or to hear the air rush by, but just to set me free. There it is again. I suppose I had to try.

I once drove as an escort for my cousin. She is a naturally fast driver, and she was in a hurry that day - I was only there because it was late and she had two small children with her. She drove really fast, but never in an attempt to lose me in traffic. I think that, given the choice, I'd never have been a fighter pilot - I'd choose to be the escort for a bomber, or some important plane that had to be protected. Like a lioness protecting her cubs: never the aggressor, but always defending staunchly. I followed her over the bridge that day, sometimes touching a hundred, never letting her white car out of sight. It was like there was only one object in the world, that white car speeding, in front, but not away, and it was all I had to look at - not traffic, not signals, not people or noises; what she did, I did.

When I was driving that day, zipping across the city as a questionable sort of escort - after all, what could I have done to protect anyone, even if something had happened - and constrained so severely that every choice was already made for me, I really did feel free.

Comments

Batool said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Batool said…
It's lovely. I don't drive but I know how you feel. Both about the cliches and about feeling free. Everytime I really feel like that, I end up describing it in some really stupid way. It's probably a universal feeling you know? That's why the cliches spurt out so naturally - and of course the fact that you want to believe it's you only makes you attempt to set it apart, hold it above description.
psnob said…
haha...the road and i feeling :p

ps. thanks for the compliments! :) :p yeah, did anti-aliasing...quite fascinating. except that....do you know everything?! you're not even a cs major! :s
atrophying said…
orange lights, the wind (or the a/c cooled gusts), feeling free - isnt that what heaven should feel like?
mashallah...i havnt driven yet but this makes me want to. man i miss pakistan...its been sooo long
psnob said…
the sidebar's still there...but for some inane reason, it doesn't show up in firefox :s
psnob said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
psnob said…
and where've your updates gone?

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