Brief Moments

I go to press my face against the cold car window, rolling it down as music fills my ears and wind dances through my hair. I watch as we turn onto a new road, a more lively and purpose filled place than the street we’d just turned off of. I stare out of the window as the scene fills my vision.
I see trees flying by, and people on bikes. Old storefronts, belonging to a place that once was but no longer is. I watch cars, familiar models holding drivers I’ve never met, pull into gas stations where the price of gas stays the same no matter how often I pass by. My eyes fall upon a man at a street corner, wearing a bike helmet and waving a sign. It’s the same man as the past times I've encountered him, but a new sign now... I’ve found myself gazing upon old crosses and flowers stuck into the side of the highway. Never having known those people, but still understanding the pain and disappointment they may have felt as their fate landed upon the side of the interstate. Watching birds fly past me on bridges. I don’t know where they’re going. I never will and don’t need to. The bird's life does not pertain to mine, but has impacted me in a minor way. Simply as a memory. I see these things pass by me, yet they don't move. I’m the one moving. Always forward, never back. Some of those things I'll only ever see once, others I don't think I'll ever live without seeing.
I hear the song change, pulling me back out of my dazed state. We slow down and hit a red light. I’m still on the same road. Not on the bridge, not by the gas station. Nowhere near the interstate, and miles away from the town with the man and the sign. I turn my face away from the window and let my hand graze the switch, pushing the window back up. The outside world gets shut out, and now it’s only me, the driver, the music, the thought of what I’ve seen and what I’ve yet to see.