Wonder

How many long days of work ended with him opening the door
to his car and sitting down? Not all, but a lot of them. It wasn't
that his work was of the back-breaking physical variety, it was
the kind of work that wore out the mind and could make a man
soft and apathetic. Sometimes he would just sit there and close
his eyes before turning the ignition. Once he was on the road it
would be the usual evening slog through traffic filled with others
like himself just happy to be heading home and away from the
touch of work. Every so often he would look into the window
of a car next to him and watch for a moment. Occasionally he
would see someone singing. Other times they would be staring
straight ahead with a steely-eyed focus to get home. They all
had that look of tiredness that work had a way of stamping on
their faces. Even if someone was happy to be driving home
among all the traffic it was rare to see that look on someone's
face. He liked putting on music in the car for his drive. Some
days he wanted something pretty and slow, other times some-
thing fast and daring, but just something to listen to. It was a
little thing that helped make the drive more bearable. There
were many times he wondered what would happen if he just
kept driving. Not going home or to the bar, just driving as far
as he could until the car ran out of gas. How far could he get
and how much farther could he go with another tank? How
he longed to let the road open wide before him and drive until
everything could make sense again. Could the road go on
forever? Would he ever need to return? He wondered but
there was only so much wondering a man could do.