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July 9, 2013

The Road To Anywhere

"Where to?" he said as she hopped into the back seat of his big yellow taxi. She was wearing a long blue summer dress and a white flower in her hair. She looked nothing shy of heavenly, so much so that if she were to be a book, and if you were to judge a book by how good it looks from the outside, you would think that she was someone who had it all figured out, like they supposedly do in heaven. But she didn't. Not that day. She needed time to think, time to put it all together in her head. Tucking the dress, gently and neatly, beneath her legs, allowed her a few extra seconds to do just that. But through the rear view mirror, she saw his gentle blue eyes looking at her. She knew the metre was running. She knew she had to say something eventually. She knew time was a luxury she couldn't afford. Time is a luxury nobody can afford. And there he was, waiting for her to say something, waiting for her to give him an answer, a reply, anything. "Say something," she whispered to the little bird hanging by a thread on the bronze necklace in between her breasts. "Just say something."

"Take me anywhere," she finally managed to say.

"I, um. What do you mean?"

But she didn't know what any of this meant. If she knew, she wouldn't be there. "I don't know, I'm sorry. I don't know where I want to go."

"That's okay, I get it, I do. But how can I take you somewhere if you don't know where it is you want to go? I'm a taxi driver, Miss. It's in my job description to take you to a destination."

"Look, I know this doesn't make much sense to you, but I need you to trust me, okay? Because today, everything I thought I knew about life has been turned inside out and upside down. I had goals, I had plans. I never thought I had to make space for surprises. And I never did like surprises. But here we are. Surprise, surprise. I was going to go on a road trip across the States. I was going to travel the world. You see, I had plans, a lot of them. I had a destination. But not today. Today, I don't have a destination. Today, I just want to go somewhere, anywhere. And I just want you to drive. You don't have to know where. You don't have to understand. I don't expect you to understand. I don't think I want you to understand. I just want you to drive. Please, just drive."

She didn't have to say anything else. He just drove.

* * * * *

Two months later, she's sitting next to him on the front seat of their big yellow taxi. Through the rear view mirror, she catches herself staring at the big neon sign they just passed on the highway, the same sign she saw in his gentle blue eyes that morning when they first met, the sign that says "this is the road to anywhere".

"Where to?" she says, looking at him, a cheeky smile spread across her face.

From the corner of her eye, she can feel him smiling. "You're the driver now, Miss," he whispers, twirling a white flower in between his nimble fingers. "You're the driver, you decide."

* * * * *