March of Microanalysis Day 28
Microfiction Entry Day 28:
We drove west over pitted roads, skipping the tolls. I watched the houses grow, breathe, expand to fill the space of the plains. My lungs did the same.
True story! This happened over Thanksgiving weekend last year, as my plus one drove the car 1000 miles to our native land. You can tell exactly where you are in the US just by the architecture. Philly is all old and cramped, with row houses jammed against one another. As you go west (and go rural), the houses get bigger and further apart, in a sort of architectural analogy for manifest destiny. Or at least our desire to own everything we see.
Also (and this is just my advice for those planning a road trip) don’t take the interstate all the time. It’s homogenized and boring, and not necessarily that much faster than some alternative routes, like the old Lincoln highway. I saw so many kitties on the road trip home. Mostly on or near farms, stalking through the tall roadside grasses for prey. So cute and deadly. How many kitties do you see on I-70? None.
For this story, I rewrote the last sentence about twenty times. I still don't really care for it, mostly because it feels so flat and inconclusive as an ending. But it's the best of my attempts to draw a parallel between outer/inner worlds in the 5 words left to me. Because that is exactly what happened as we drove: I noticed my body relaxing and feeling less cornered as we got closer to home. Which is unsurprising, really (particularly considering the…ahem…comfort differential I have between my homeland and my current residence). On a related note, this week at work I saw a guy with a t-shirt that said Philadelphia: because Hell is filled.
Pretty much, friends. Pretty much.
Through March, I'm posting a breakdown/analysis of the microfiction I posted on the corresponding day in February. This is probably only interesting to you if you care about the mechanics of writing, or if you know me personally.