Today, I am the child sitting in the back seat of a car on a journey to a place undisclosed by the driver. I jitterbug my legs, anxious to be set free from the confines of the speeding steel box hugging the blackened asphalt curves wending round oldgrowth pines, oaks, birch and aspen, the double yellow lines in the center of the road intermittently broken on one side of the other to indicate where a driver might pass.

There are no other drivers to pass or following the road in the opposite direction. That give some allowance to cut some curves, bisect them as we speed forward to places unknown.

But I just want to arrive.

”Are we there yet?” It is not the first time or last time the question has been asked. I wince, dreading the question as it is uttered, for I hate hearing it as much as I hate asking it.

No one replies. There is no one to reply. The car drives on.

I wish we could just arrive, for I am tired of this drive and am torn between wanting to run and laugh at the other end and just wanting to find a soft place to rest my head and cry. Boys don’t cry, so I will hide the tears as gemstones buried into the folds of the soft space and pretend those are treasures that will find refrain on your lips when you discover them after I am gone.