DRIVING TO WORK

She drove to work. Every morning she would step on her red Tracker and drove up to the laboratory in the middle of the higway. There she would show her teacher ID and park her car. At night she would show again her ID and pick up her Tracker.

Early morning she would climb downstairs and her red Tracker was already there, out from the garage waiting for her. It was part of the duties of the gate keeper to have the cars ready for the flat owners. She loved the sound of the engine when she turned it on, it was like a brief and wild good morning. She would then see her just made up eyes, still perfect on the rearview mirror, and she would step on the accelerator. She loved speed, although she was a bit anxious about it, it was like a game for her. After the extremely slow street where she lived, a block from a school, she would increase the speed through the long avenue which connected the city to the highway. Again the bottle neck there due to many people commuting made her decrease speed, but she knew this and instead of going mad shouting or getting desperate she would turn on the radio and laugh at the commentator's silly jokes or sing along to the eighties songs set on the same station. She would look then at the soft and pale morning colours, at the evergreens surrounding the highway, at the tall skyscrappers being constantly built, at the people waiting for buses that reached further into suburban neighbourhoods, at the... HONK!!!!! Oops, again caught in reverie. She woke up and fixed her sight on the cars and the highway, no more bottle neck, full highway speed, not a vertical though, this was the exciting part, this was where she felt the air running through her hair as she swerved on the curves to take the verticals again. And soon the lab was to be seen, waiting patiently and tall.

At night she came back to her red Tracker. She would put her books, her lap top and her recorder in the back and she would walk to the front seat tired, sleepy and hungry. She looked at her eyes on the reareview mirror, smeared rimmel and mascara. She stepped on the accelerator and watched the soft hues of the sunset, the yellows, the purples, the greys, the bright glow of the sinking sun. Them slowly, the lights would start sparkling from the small houses in the highway, from the lamp posts, from the twinkling stars above. Again the bottle neck, cars coming back and into the city. The air was cool, the night was calm. No need for speed. Soft music would come from the CD in the car. Soon the trees and the the grass turned into concrete sidewalks and houses first, then the school, the hospital, the subway station, the street to her house and the friendly gate keeper, ready to open the garage with a kind, "Good night, Miss X. Another hard day?"