I Would Walk Some Number of Miles

The trip from my hometown to my college town is a long one when driving all alone. It takes more than two and a half hours and, for a girl who's never driven that far on her own before, is extremely tedious. There were too few starry bright spots throughout the trip.

There was one, however, that sticks to my mind incessantly, though I drove here almost two weeks ago. It happened during the final leg of the journey, and I was sorely tempted to turn around and take a picture, but I didn't. I will resort to describing it through the medium of feeble words. 

First, the sky. The sky was dark. A purply, blue color, the color of an immense storm from which you cannot escape. The way the world would look always if we lived in the sea. The color of the night sky lit up by spotlights. It was huge, clouds high in the atmosphere, and towering, crawling toward the highway menacingly. A kind of storm you knew would have low thunder and the kind of lightning that is shrouded by others clouds, so you never see the line of light, only the clouds lit up subsequently. The sky takes up most of the world, here. 

Next, the land. This is farmland Missouri. Smalls hills of course grasses and tall, barley-colored stalks of something not quite wheat. It is mid-winter and the world is windy and bleak. The wind on the plains is harsh and ever-lasting, nothing to stop it or slow it down. The grass sways violently, then gently, beautiful no matter what. 

And there in the midst of all that is a large, old, gray sewer pipe, spilling out near the road. The water in its basin is still and not any specific color. The wind does not reach it because the land dips here and cups the water in a cache of soft earth and solid concrete. The grass is green. 

And there are birds. Not more than thirty, if my memory is correct. White, small (at least from where I was looking), and frenzied. They dove gracefully into the water, pecking at some small, uncatchable specimen there, taking turns of two or three at a time. They seemed to be dancing on the air, letting their bodies plummet toward the earth and arching back up in cursive motions. They were smooth and fluid, wonderfully living. If standing closer, one might have seem the fevered way in which they fought for whatever was down there in the water, but from a distance, in a silent car, the scene is beautiful beyond measure. 

And then it was past. And I thought about turning around. But what picture can do that justice? None that I could take. I drove on.