My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there. -Rumi
He wasn't entirely sure what towns the bus was in between, but he knew they were miles away from anything worth being near.
And he liked it.
He wasn't even sure what town he'd bought the ticket for. But it was far enough away. And every time he woke up, there was new land outside the window, that he'd never seen. Places he hadn't had the time to stain or bruise with things he wouldn't want to remember. So he rode on and on and on. He might just every line he could until he hit the ocean, or maybe dip down into Mexico. The weather would be nice at least.
He turned his phone on for the first time since leaving in a tiny bullshit town somewhere in the middle of Texas. Twenty seven missed calls. Eighteen new voicemails.
He stomped the battery into peices, threw the phone in the bus station trash can, and kept riding.
People started to look a little different out here. Skin tones deepened, clothing changed. The accents started getting a little more unfamiliar. He felt displaced, and happy to be drifting.
He stopped riding buses somewhere in Arizona. He started riding trains again, like he did when he was younger and running away from home. There was probably something in that for a psychiatrist to parse out and explain away. Something about fear, and something about sex.
The trains ran out in California, and there was water stretching out under gray sky. And there was a feeling in the air, that felt like somehting good.
He wondered about traveling, and about running, as he looked out on waves and waves and waves. He thought about the beats, and how they spent their time running around the country. That the word beat came from beatitude. He wondered if the distance behind him brought him any closer to heaven. He threw his driver's license and his passport into the ocean.
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