Sometimes, I feel lost in the world. I go out to movies, to coffee shops, to a park, and I feel remote from the people I see around me, from the people that are actively defining this age. The randomness of breezes and traffic violations and talking and movement makes me think that if I removed myself from the world equation, my predictions would be more accurate.
How often, lover, do you drive at night? And not on the weekends, with the drunken, rowdy college students yelling out of their windows about this sports team, and that victory, and trying to convince everyone of the most important truth of all: how fucking awesome spring break really is. And also not in the early evening, with the middle-aged fathers driving home from their long days of work, going to see their middle-aged wives in their crisp, clean aprons. Rather, on (for example) a Tuesday in mid March, at 2 in the morning. At that time, all the traffic lights seem to operate especially for you: you never encounter a red light. They are all green, as far as you can see, and the red ones change upon your approach, bowing, letting you pass because they know who you are, and where you’ve come from, and your gnawing need to get where you’re going. The lights in the businesses you pass are all dimmed deferentially.
It's the most consequential that a person can feel. It’s the closest to utopia that one can be.
Except, of course, for the moments when you know, know, that you're in the presence of someone who enjoys being in the presence of you. Not because of an endgame, not because they're striving toward genital satisfaction or monetary advancement, or fulfilling a pseudo-altruistic need to "help," but because they simply derive some small measure of selfish pleasure from spending time with you. And knowing that you are selfish in precisely the same way.
--Where The Fish Go In The Winter
