I used to think the moon was following me. I would sit in the backseat of the car, watching it through the window on my way home. Now I’m the one driving, and the moon still follows me on my way to Target.
There aren’t many cars on the road--a few ahead of me and none behind. I almost feel a kinship between these other strangers on the road. Kindred spirits on their way to or from somewhere while everyone else is deep in slumber. But just as I begin feeling comfortable among my unknown companions, they begin to peel off, one by one. I watch as each of them makes turns down streets that I have never been down as they make their way to places I have never been, and I weirdly feel a bit betrayed with each of their exits.
I have a habit of staying up way later than I have any business staying up. I justify it to myself and anyone who asks by blaming it on homework and whatnot, but the truth is I’m fascinated by the feeling of being awake in the night. When it’s the dead of night and everyone else in the house is fast asleep, I look out my bedroom window, searching for other lights in other houses. Usually, there’s no sign of life, but on the rare occasion that there is a light, I stare at it and imagine what that person must be doing . . . Maybe they’re hard at work. Maybe they just fell asleep with their lights on. Or maybe they’re looking back at me, wondering the same exact questions in their own nocturnal mind. These insignificant hypotheticals accompany my sweet loneliness until it all becomes meaningless.
There’s something so intriguing about loneliness. There are times when it’s numbing, and I become so desperate for connection that I do things like stare out my window at three in the morning, but there are also moments when it feels good. Kind of like that painful pleasure you get when you would push on a loose tooth as a kid. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s like you’re in a movie. Like the loneliness you’re feeling is supposed to be felt because it’s just part of the script. And it’ll all be over in a few scenes. All you need to do is wait.
Target is closed. I don’t know why I didn’t realize that sooner. Why would any store be open this late? I don’t really feel like going home. But there’s nowhere to go. I pull out of the parking lot, checking to make sure there aren’t any incoming cars before making the turn. Of course, there aren’t any other cars. Where is everyone? I always wonder about that at night. How can all those people just disappear? Where do they all go? To think that all those faces that pass by, each one wholly original and new, all have their own place to be. I mean, you would think there’d at least be a couple of other people out like me. What could they possibly be doing that’s more important? I guess a lot of things, but still. I’m always caught off guard by the emptiness.
I continue driving down the road. I want to go somewhere, but I don’t want to stop anywhere. So I keep moving. I turn right. Then left. I make my turns instinctively as if I know where I’m headed, slowly getting more and more lost. As I drive, I scan my passing surroundings, looking for that thing that I want but don’t know. But all I see are black masses silhouetted against the gray night sky. I slow down until I am at a complete stop in the middle of the road. Have you ever tried this? Just stopped in the middle of the road? Not because you’re stuck in traffic or because of a car accident or anything like that. Just because you can. It’s a weird feeling. It feels wrong, and anxiety fills me. I start worrying that a car is going to materialize out of thin air and crash into me, or maybe a police officer is going to hand me a ticket for disrupting the nonexistent traffic. But after a while that dread settles, and I’m just a car in the middle of an empty road.
I start up my car again and continue down the road, and that’s when I see it. A railroad. I slow down until I’m sitting right in front of it. I look down each end into the darkness. The fact that I don’t see anything and that parts of the track are missing indicates that there won’t be any trains using these tracks anytime soon. I turn onto the railroad, cautiously checking both ends once more, and begin to follow where the tracks go.
There’s not much to see on this path. I can’t see far past the short distance illuminated by the headlights, but I keep driving anyway. It’s really quiet here. Usually I’m scared of the dark, but there’s a sense of calm that accompanies me tonight. I pull over next to the train tracks to bask in this silence. Silence like this is rare. Some people go their whole lives without ever experiencing quiet quite like this. They think they know what quiet is, but when they find themselves lucky enough to hear actual silence, it changes their whole perspective on sound. But the thing about silence is that it can be misleading. I’ve noticed that a lot of the time, people conflate quietness with niceness, but the truth is the nicest person in the world is just a quiet asshole. I mean, is it being nice if you keep your assholish thoughts to yourself? You’re still thinking them. Maybe it doesn’t make you the worst person in the world, but a good person? What makes a person good? Transparency or restraint?
After a while of contemplating the nature of a good person, I try to start my engine again. It’s not working. I try and try again. Fuck. I think the battery drained. I don’t know how long it’s been since my headlights went out or how long I’ve been sitting here, but it must have been a while. I have a habit of getting lost in my thoughts. My mind gets carried away as my stream of consciousness connects dots that have no relation to one another, and before I know it, I find myself having no idea of what happened in the seconds, minutes, or hours prior. I check the clock. My parents are probably fast asleep, but I don't know who else I can ask to help me at this hour, so I call.
After a while of doing my best to communicate my location to my dad over the phone, he finds me. He’s tired but not angry. Thankfully. He helps me jumpstart the dead battery, and when that’s done, we get back in our cars. As I start my engine, I notice another light in my peripheral. I turn to look and see a large illuminated window in the distance. It looks like a living room, with nice furniture and a big grand piano made visible by a lamp sitting on a table. It looks warm. I wonder who lives there and what they’re doing up at this hour. Why they weren’t up before. Or if they were up the whole time and I had somehow passed by in the midst of my zoning out. I want to go there. Spend time in the warmth of that room. See what books are on the bookshelves. Hear them play the piano. Melt into the couch. This short fantasy reminds me of my cold bed at home, waiting for my warmth. I start to follow my dad’s car.
We make it back onto the main road and as I drive I look up at the moon following me. When I was little, my mom told me that there was a rabbit on the moon. I used to think she meant an actual rabbit, and I would picture something akin to the Energizer Bunny looking at me through a window on the moon. But now when I look up, all I see are the dark craters forming the rough shape of an animal. It was strangely comforting to know that somewhere up in space there was a rabbit watching over me to ensure my safe trip home.
My bed is cold when I get into it, but it slowly adjusts to my body’s temperature and I fall asleep, reminding myself that I still need to go to Target in the morning.
Christian Chang is a senior majoring in Illustration at the School of Visual Arts who hails from California. He writes sometimes, too.