text: The Volvo is a reliable car, but, like fine wine, gets bitter with age. Its engine whirls reluctantly to a start, its lights responding in a dazzling array of bright red and blinding white. From a distance, the scene was nothing more than the old routine of a seasoned road veteran, but to its driver, its lights were the ticket to freedom. This ticket was the gateway to a fleeting sense of hopelessness and simultaneously the yellow brick road to freedom. The catch, however, was that it always led to the same place. A Volvo lets you feel lost, but nonetheless comforts you with its familiar roar and occasional stumble. Feeling lost with this car is another way of saying you’re totally free to go wherever you want. So I think of this freedom as if it were the crisp night air pouring into the front seat from the sunroof, tasting sweet as a byproduct of bees hard at work pollinating the spring flowers. With all windows down as I swerve between potholes, the nearby wildlife are presented with the lyrical genius of Wheatus as he and I harmonize from the bottoms of our hearts about the struggles of teenagers and their dirtbag counterparts. In celestial mockery of my Volvo and its headlight hubris, the night sky awakens. Their collective luminescence overwhelms the faltering turn signal on my heap of 2004 Japanese metal. As the road widens and the turns subside, my headlights become almost one, blending into each other and forgetting their differences. I am no longer the driver, but a passenger on a falling star. There is no better sense of our existence than this feeling of senselessness. A grinding thud interrupts this moonlight sonata. “Damn you,” I whispered, mostly to myself, but also to the pothole. It should regret its actions and remain deeply penitent for adjourning my mighty dance with the heavens. Nonetheless, I pop the trunk and begrudgingly begin the process of replacing my blown tire with a spare. It’s always the front left wheel, and it’s always a user error. For that reason, I have slowly grown to accept the gentle indifference of the world. There are no inherently bad things, just different intentions and consequences tied to each action. Thus, it is to capture the universe in essence to say everything needs everything else in order to be anything at all. The only true “bad” thing would be to take it too seriously. After all, it’s just a pothole. The Volvo sputtered back to life, its lights reflected in the eternal pool of the sky. Two roads diverged in this wood, and I took the one with less potholes. It is not necessary to reach any destination beyond my Volvo’s capacity. The purpose of a drive is to drive - to take the wheel and your hand as one and smell the oil. It is not to reach a destination, but to enjoy the sights along the way. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. As I gaze in astonishment at the world above me and the warm air surrounding me, I find myself overwhelmed by the pressure of these small celestial candles. As I turn off my car’s front beams, the sky follows suit, the Volvo lights fading as they lose their battle to the sun. The sky fills its pool with splashes of color, its painting becoming an infinite ocean, with the Volvo lights reflecting the universe looking back at itself.