Dialogue

Dialogue

Kevin Chang 

“There’s a certain color of intimacy reserved for you and the road,

when you’re making the trip of a thousand miles

down that endlessly long stretch, and there’s nothing to do

but to hold down the gas

and appreciate the lack of scenery.”

 

A tired, browned van lies on withered road. The road lengthens.

The exhaust is palpable, and its exhaust is broken by the weight of its mighty body.

That is someone’s end.

 

There is a place in the expanse

where the streets have all become one, where the greens and reds gasp for meaning,

and the STOP!s bother no more.

There is a place in the expanse

where there is only a brown,

a quiet that is only ever broken to humor necessity.

Then that moment passes, and it all returns to earth.

The expanse beckons, grimly.

 

But you can make that trip.

Your van is different; you are different.

Leave the loud lights behind.

Listen to me, and trade urban sights for nothingness.

I know you can drive halfway, because I’ll be helping.

I know you can go on tired, because I’ll be watching.

Do not to lose to the lethargy,

because I’m waiting.

 

Eventually, you will come to the place where I stopped on that road.

When you pass this wayward van,

wave!

There may not be civil red or green in this loneliness,

but with the company of one,

there will be a lighter shade of brown.