Rest stops rarely feature nice playgrounds. So when my kids and I happened upon one last summer in Illinois, I shelved my miles-per-hour plans and parked it in the mulch. The children boarded swings and sailed over the wind turbines that spun like toy pinwheels in the flat, distant corn fields. How long could we afford to linger? We were just two hours into the drive, with seven more to go. Legs stretched out and folded under. Over by the monkey bars, a group of teens leaned against the poles, still waking in the mid-morning light.
The din of the highway and the squeak of chains wrapped all of us gathered there in a blanket of white noise. We entered restrooms in lockstep and breathed the same scented air. What we’d never share again was each other’s company. In adjacent moments we gained and lost the biker adjusting his wind-whipped flag, the retirees browsing pamphlets, and the poodle tied to the welcome sign.
When I was in college, my Wharton friends complained about a required statistics course. What if once, I’d gone to class in their place?
Find the combined odds:
Of assembling a team of forty-two photographers on the first try, just by agreeing to meet at Ninth Street. Of boarding the same subway car and pairing with a passenger. Of the pairs gradually disembarking at the rider’s stop, and feeling the raised, round disks at the platform’s edge. From there, of walking up stairs, down streets, over grates, under causeways, into elevators, and through doorways, all the way back to the bed where the passenger lays his head. Of reboarding the train to find that pictures of the beds have replaced all the ads. Of seeing the covers laid bare–double, single, soiled and silky, filthy, pretty, pillow ticking, firm and sinking, horizontal, we the people, created equal, we the people.
A small but non-zero chance.