after
My tank strap slips as I climb out my car window. Midnight breezes stream through the cornfields and my hair. Shrieks of laughter echo amidst honking horns, a thousand engines starting.
I always wait until the end; I love to watch the machinery come down, the magic dismantled and loaded onto trucks. That means I have to fight epic parking lot battles, but I love those, too. Watching everyone flow blissfully back into their lives.
But for now, I sit on my car. The headlights turn into taillights and I rest in the dwindling glow. It was a good concert.
Finally, now that I'm sick, I have time again
Space Between
For forty-five minutes in the Veteran's Park parking lot before first period,
we could breathe. The one place we felt free to be kids instead of future scientists, lawyers, doctors, politicians or whatever the hell our parents had dreamed up for us. We weren't debaters, national merit scholars, or mathaletes. We were horny teenagers making out with our boyfriends and girlfriends, taking swigs from our sodas spiked with Schnapps, smoking, rocking to the Femmes. It was the little place we'd carved for ourselves between AP classes and parental pressure.
Thirteen years later, and I haven't been able to get back to that place, even for a half an hour. Somewhere to lay on the hood of a car and forget expectations and responsibilities. Forty-five minutes of freedom before reality comes crashing back in.
Flagellation
I'm in the lot. I can't seem to move. What was I here for again?
Suddenly, the dailies have caught up with me. I crank the window all the way down, catching the fall's frigid breeze, cooling my hot cheeks and tense jaw. Finish the cigarette. Listen to the stories. Tears well up against my will. So fucking stupid.
I'm sitting in the Target lot, listening to some damned NPR piece, having an existential crisis.
At Target. Could I please have a little more dignity here? Can I be a little less do-nothing middle class bleeding heart?
Thanks. Yours made me flash back to hs and realize the lots most familiar involved waiting for my brother, annoyed. Your version is much more evocative (edit: and very much so. Awesome.) It made me think outside that, and I ended up... at Target. Sheesh.
Wow, this is a great topic. Everyone's -- Deena, Liese, Daisy Jane -- is fabulous, but sarameg's really hit home.
::applauds::
I'm usually in my driveway.
They've got us pegged, according to pledge drives....
Parking Lot
The single security light left the parking lot with pools of shadow around the bins of cans, bottles and newspapers. "I should have done this earlier," I thought, jumping when a gust of wind set a stray can rattling across the empty parking lot. A Harley roared into the parking lot, and the burly driver, head to toe in black leather, drove the bike around and around me. As he stopped, I mentally measured the distance to my car. He held up a pizza box. "Where's the cardboard recycling?" I pointed. He tossed the box into the bin and was gone.
