I drive along the highway which- quoting now – isn’t much of a highway, just a glorified 4-lane stretch of road. There seem to be a lot of these in America, I notice. It feels like I’ve driven along most of them.
It’s early, and the gaggle of morning commuters is beginning to trickle onto the roads. I yawn but don’t even notice, I’m so wrapped up in my thinking. The sun is rising orange and yellow behind an overpass, beautiful in the melancholy of an empty morning. A figure is silhouetted against the light, and as I approach I can see a man, tall and lanky. He’s trudging slowly, a coat over one shoulder and a lumpy messenger bag on the other. He looks older, but it might be the ravages of homelessness that make him look so.
As I pass I ponder how he came to be here, in this lonely existence. I wonder what circumstance made him fly or threw him from his home. Who he hurt. What he left behind. If he ever looks back…
And then I realize that the only difference between this man and me is the car I’m driving in.