Even if there weren't several tinted buses humming away outside, I'd still find it obvious that we are all going somewhere. A face of travel isn't really hard to identify. While most people roam about for business and other sensible reasons, there's always an odd man out. Everyone knows it. The outlier - by mistake or good measure. The one who quietly yet boldly slips through life's cracks, those of which the majority of people desire to jump up and over as a youthful adolescent would when climbing steel monkey bars.
I don't know what he's running from, if he's running from anything at all, but he is running. He looks just like a greyhound. I guess you might say an escape is still an escape.
He's a lot like me. Although my trip is purposeful, the temptation to leave everything behind is always lurking in a fog of its own...like an unnoticeable greyish-clear balloon tied to a string that's decided to fit itself around my wrist.
So used to changes, the come and goes, I've never known what it means to be comfortable... people and places fading in and out of my life like a struggle to find perfect reception through a radio knob.
There's something about a departure-related waiting area. It kind of gets to me. A feeling of being in-between. Something like crossing over to the afterlife. There are so many directions to go from where I stand right at this moment. A stitched jigsaw slowly expanding outward as it spins itself a web of some strange and eclectic mix of excitement, sadness, strength, and fear as droplets of each emotion seep through the unwoven spaces sitting bare as the spider works on setting the scene for its next meal in a timely, routine fashion.
It's so much easier to say goodbye as packs of Mardi Gras drunks stumble in and out, only visiting to cure beer-induced hunger and act like children as they relieve themselves.
And so I sit with the sight of a patterned floor upon where my feet rest; spaced out rows of connected, hard-plastic brotherhood. A view I find more calming than the modern food court ahead serving man-made indelicacies nearby a gift shop of meaningless items.
Reluctantly confined and packed in an open room, I've the quietest bark of these dogs in a kennel.
Upon a clean visual sweep of the never-ending stream of walking Mr. Potatoheads, I'm left with the internal acknowledgement of the presence and one-way unity of the distant lone wanderer and I as it finds me in the bliss.
My subconscious speaks out shyly to him:
"Somewhere in the rummage of an overused knapsack...materially equal to the mundane blueprint of our mapped-out lives...I know shelves upon shelves of books of absolutely unshakable etch-a-sketches compiling life-lasting memories were drawn and dreamt in the poetic beauty that ignites your soul."
And before I depart, I nervously swallow and say:
"I don't mind if you sit next to me. I won't pay attention to your missing teeth if you won't to my vacant everything. I want to know where you've been and where you are going. Who did you love? Was she the one? Did you throw it all away? What did you see and who did you meet? Did you get to where you were going? Tell me your greyhound story. Help me make the same mistake."
© This writing was created by and remains property of the username, lionsmane. It is to be claimed as an original piece only on whaleshares and steemit under this username. Creation date: March, 2019
Disclaimer: I do NOT own the rights to the photos used within and will gladly take any photo down at the request of the owners/creators
LINK TO PHOTOS I USED FOR THIS POST (Add "https://" to the link)
#1)upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/2003-08-25_Greyhound_bus.jpg
#2)c1.staticflickr.com/1/330/32795729462_86f4bf69ed_b.jpg
#3)images.gawker.com/18k1o4rp77yudjpg/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636.jpg
#4) [THIS IS A SERIES OF PHOTOS]media.istockphoto.com/photos/filthy-manual-worker-after-his-shiftpictureid522637412k=6&m=522637412&s=612x612&w=0&h=eclSi6KDKpkDYQsCyOP3_oGoHfwTrZljU0auNOL3HIQ=
#5)www.thehippocket.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/save-money-on-travel.jpeg