...

I feel like I could write every day for the next week or not write at all for a while. I hope to find the will to make it the former. The only thing I have written in the past week is the following: well, the following and everything before the second "the following." And by "the following," I mean everything after the second "the following," which includes the third, fourth, and fifth "the following"s.

I'm not sure how to label what I wrote, or even what title to give it, if any. It's different from what I usually do. If you enjoy reading it, that is wonderful.

***

A can of Coke was folded into itself like a child punched in the gut. It slumped in the gap between two sections of the concrete barrier erected to keep road drivers as road drivers, and not shoulder drivers. Shoulders are for concrete, and cones, and men who sweat along the ridges of their spines and between their toes. And they're always men, even if they're women, because that is what the "Men At Work" sign says.

Traffic moved slowly. In another gap was a bag of barbecue potato chips, Utz. Empty, of course. Construction workers are not elves, or pixies, or any type of whimsical creature that would leave goodies for hungry, slow-moving commuters to grab as they rolled by. I could tell they were barbecue Utz potato chips because of the large strip of orange on the bag. They use the same color for the chips. That makes it natural.

Then traffic decided to stop moving slowly. Why? Because that is bland and traffic is tired of being bland. What the traffic decided to become, without moving any faster or slower, is this: an obese man climbing a broken escalator.

If you think fat people should be mocked, then traffic is stopping every few steps to bite a jelly doughnut and lick the sticky powder off his hands. He is so fat that no one can squeeze past him. A line of impatient commuters are forced to glower at traffic as he ambles up the steps, smacking his fingers and wiping the saliva on the hand rail.

If you shy away from making fun of the frailties of others, then perhaps traffic is not fat. Perhaps he is overweight, and has diabetes, and the jelly doughnut is filled with insulin, and he is looking for an empty spot where he can escape the loud sighs and muttered remarks and fill the air with sobs that only birds and the boy that lives inside every man can hear.

Or perhaps he is like my Dad, whose cane tapped the ground in the rhythm of a clock. My dad was once thin. In old pictures, before the heart medication, his face is smiling and happy. His body grew bloated before I was born. In pictures where he holds me and my sisters, or sits next to his parents, or watching TV on the couch, his mouth is in a frown, the corners of his lips pushed down by the weight of his cheeks. Yes. It is the weight in his cheeks.

So when I say traffic moved slowly, I mean that it moved like a fat man, or a father, or a road clotted with cars. I mean it moved slow enough for me to imagine a construction worker annoyed that all the gaps are filled with trash. And what's this, a beer bottle? The construction worker glares at Miguel, who is laughing with his friends by bulldozer. Miguel is always happy. And he's always eating mints.

But these musing will soon end. For traffic will ease and these cars, these cells with four wheels, will flow again. Traffic always clears up in the end. It is why, if you remind yourself of this, you can battle the weight of your cheeks and still smile.