The Reluctance of Weightlessness

         Faced with the intersection that would bring me home, I made a left instead of a right. A left would be to foray back into the usual. Left is home, the grocery store -  responsibility. On the other hand, I had never been right on this road. Possibility. When I looked right I could feel the emptiness wanting to be filled. I turned the wheel and watched my world shift upside down from the new perspective of this new road. The car crept along like a cat feeling his way around in the dark, taking in the new path inch by inch. Lighting it up as I moved along, more and more of this destiny revealed itself. I turned the radio off, and the silence fell upon my surroundings, thicker and more prominent than the fog. To the right, a tree I had never seen. It was oddly shaped, like a hand thrusting out of the ground, grasping at the power lines. I very cautiously let my foot rest upon the gas pedal, and my car paced itself down the new road.
         

         Very distinctly, I felt the acquisition of something. As the odometer counted every new foot I traveled, the pressure of the majestic encapsulated and impressed upon me. It was the gaining of knowledge so beautiful, an explanation so rational, that one can't help but shudder at its grandness. The fog wrapped my car and mediated my interaction with the world. The tree on the right grabbed at the night air. To the left sat a lone house, the first new house I had seen in such a long time. People must live there, but were surely asleep. They lived not, but dreamt so readily. Peace exists only when worldly chains disappear.
         

         I passed the first street light since the intersection that spurred this exploration. I passed the first corporation building; the first stop sign, the first deer.
         

         The mist opened up, and my lights shined through the winter air to reveal the perfect, splendid form of a deer. My brakes screeched but my hands froze and rested in paralysis on the wheel. Within that instant, and with the grace of a sweeping oceanic current, he jumped, just as I would not have expected a deer in the headlights to do. That splendid creature, tall, brown, innocent, and glistening in the moonlight that stroked but did not hold it. After such minimal hesitation he leapt like an eagle springing into flight, and saved both of our lives.
         

         I sat for a long time after that. Many thoughts rushed through my head and cascaded past my conscious thought, such that my inner voice could only vocalize a small portion of these thoughts. I remember thinking about God, and about deer, and whether or not I could have saved us the way that he did. While thinking such unrelated thoughts, I came to the realization that I had at some point begun to drive again, and found myself then lost. I couldn't see the lone house, or the hand that grasped for air. I was surrounded by fields. The stars were so distinctly beautiful, and despite the mist they were more visible than I could remember. I tried to find the only constellations I could remember, Orion, Hercules, the Big and Little Dippers, but I was largely unsuccessful. Aside from the constellations, I had come to terms with the fact that I was indeed lost, and a plan of action had needed to be taken. In a similar situation before, I would have been trapped by the loss of control, but now felt clearly different. At that intersection I had left behind my former self. On the other side was a gateway back into reality. There, I was weightless and free. That road was still there, I was sure of it, and it will still be there for many years to come. I resigned to pull over to the side of the road, and quietly drifted off to sleep.