Salmon

I’m like a salmon swimming upstream,
Trying to reach my destination with every ounce of my being.

I’m caught in the ponderous plodding of elderly drivers in both lanes.
They creep in unison like vines growing up the wall,
Without urgency, without destination or purpose, but just to grow tall.

My blood pressure rises in sync with my break pressure.
The tension jumps higher with each application of my shoe to the pedal,
Causing my overheating machine to apply its own shoes,
Wearing through the break pads and squealing against metal.

My spirits soar as one of the pace cars begins to pull ahead of the other,
Offering me a tiny, fleeting window of opportunity.
I take it, jumping into the other lane like a madman on a mission,
Only to have my hopes dashed as the new pace car slows back down
To rejoin its fellow pace car at the hip, like an elder coalition.

The approaching mindless traffic light is a gorgeous green,
Like the morning through a canopy of summer leaves,
Promising me the salvation of few precious minutes of time,
And then just when I get close, the light turns to hideous amber.

There is still time to pass before its invisible barrier erects,
But the pace car stops, without warning or warranting,
And the very real barrier of Oldsmobile steel sits in front of me
Like the Great Wall of China.

I fuss and fume out loud, spouting and ranting
At the blissfully unaware driver before me.
Lecturing out an animated monologue of how much better
My life would be if I had just been able to get around him.

The light finally decides to turn green again,
Laughing at me as I pass beneath its all-too-powerful presence.
Suddenly I realize that the other pace car dawdled just a second too long.
I leap back into the other lane, free of my tenacious tormentors.

I revel in the glory of unbridled acceleration,
My tension leaving me with each shift of the gears,
My car sounding like a caged animal finally released into the wild.

But my joy is interrupted by the pretty playful dance of red and blue lights
Reflected in my mirrors and in my panic stricken mind.
I pull to the side of the road and contemplate the cost of my careless need for speed.

That evening, after a depressing day of dealing with the impact to my financial wellbeing,
I return again, as I do every day, to the salmon swimming upstream.