Watching the Wheels

Story 6/8

The feeling in the car was somewhere in between the night and the new day. It was early; we both wanted to get home and have a long day of channel surfing, guiltless snacking, doom scrolling and naps in between reruns of Friends. We had had a long night. The light of the warm sky and the cool air smeared out behind us, like our old makeup, sinking into our skins.

Emma was driving as if she had a feeling to outrun, and I was looking out of the window extremely dramatically, breathing in the sounds and melodies of I’m Only Sleeping by The Beatles.

“How’re you feeling?” I asked Emma.
“Yeah not too bad, to be fair, I think I haven’t quite come down yet. Still in that weird phase where I can convince myself it’s all good, you know.”
“Yeah I get you,” I said, still looking out the window. My mind felt hazy and absent, and I was wondering if we were going to speak much, or if we were going to silently exist in our own thoughts until Emma dropped me home.
“So you said you can’t go on holiday for those dates because of your work thing?” I asked.
“Yeah so June 4th to June 20th I’m away,” she curtly replied.
“Didn’t you say you wanted to quit by then anyway? Like, I thought you had a plan to be out of there by April, like that was going to be your birthday present to yourself. To quit and move on-”
“Look, do you really want to talk about this now? I feel so aggy,” she snapped. I told her that we didn’t have to and we sat with the heavy, faint hum of Sun King meandering through the car. The road became a space of thoughts and doubts. Cars drove past us that felt light and full of energy, while we sat questioning every life choice that led to this moment.
“I do want to quit, I don’t want to be there forever, but I don’t like the tude you’re giving me. I don’t really like the way you made jabs when I said I couldn’t come on holiday and I don’t like the way you think I’m giving my life up because I want to work. Simply, work. I don’t think too much about it,” she exhaled.
“It’s not that I have an issue with you working, it’s just, exactly what you said. You’re not thinking too much about it, you’re just like mindlessly working for these big corporations that don’t offer much to society, much to your soul-”
“How do you know what my soul needs?”
“Because I know you!”
“You don’t!” Emma exclaimed. Silence.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap,” Emma apologised.
“I’m sorry too, I shouldn’t have riled you up.”

We took some deep breaths. Whoever was going to speak next was to set the tone of the conversation. This could go one of two ways; a hostile spat or a calm exchange.

“I think it’s good to be conscious sometimes,” I murmured, softly, like tossing a leaf into a pond. We approached traffic and Emma drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, in time with the music.

“You know, just because I work, doesn’t mean I’m not conscious. It’s not like I’m sleepwalking. I just… don’t know if everything is so black and white. Like, I just like working and doing what I do well. It’s not revolutionary, it’s not saving the world, sometimes I lose focus and perspective…” She trailed off, hunting for a way to put herself on top. “Just because it’s not a grand statement about who I am, doesn’t mean that it’s not enough to just do the job and be good to the people around you.”

I nodded, because that sounded nice, and it sounded calm.

“But,” I said, feeling the electric prick of the but, “don’t you ever feel like you’re just putting yourself into something without even asking if it deserves you?” I could tell that stumped her. Her tapping slowed, the standstill of the traffic turned the car into a warm prison of tension and sweat that smelt like stale alcohol. She turned down the music, The Beatles’ Good Day Sunshine was not matching the tense atmosphere charged by our passive aggressiveness.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, “Maybe it’s about whether I deserve the life I’m building, and the money I’m making and the work is just a part of it. Maybe you have to choose to believe in what you’re doing. Even if it’s boring, or mundane or not totally how I thought my life would be.”

The traffic crept forward a few inches, then stopped, and someone honked way back behind us. I asked her if she wanted a cigarette. Rolling one was the only thing that was going to keep my mind occupied and distract it from, what can only really be described as, exploding. She said she’d have one, offering me one of her straights in the glove compartment, but I said I was happy to roll. We sat with Good Day Sunshine fading into All Things Must Pass by George Harrison. Emma cracked open the windows and we both took a drag of our cig, looking out to the sticky traffic ahead.

“I don’t know, I just don’t want to feel like I’m living someone else’s dream. Like, I’m helping them feel better about the choice that they made in life. I don’t like feeling like someone else’s reality only works if I’m below them, working and, like, for example, making their company more profitable, so they can get more of a rep, while I’m not really sure why I’m doing this all.”

Emma frowned and shrugged. Not unkindly.

“I get you, I get that,” she reassured me. “I used to be scared of being someone that only cared about payday, or the weekend, or working my way up. But, like this conversation has made me realise, that maybe there’s another trap that people fall into, like being obsessed with staying true or real. It’s still an idea of something that you’re falling into, you’re still letting some imaginary version of yourself control your choices.”

I kind of understood what she said, enough for the point to press gently against my ribs. I took another drag of my cigarette and opened the window a smidge more to exhale all the smoke out the car. I turned to look straight ahead.

“I never said it was about being real,” I said, unnecessarily defensively. “I just think that some people want something more from life. Like there’s a bit more of a hunt, a bit less passivity. Is that a word? There’s a bit more of a desire to tap into yourself, to create something, to make something. Even if it’s not good. Even if you, maybe, can’t get better at it. It’s just another conscious way to try and figure out where you want to place yourself in this world.” I sounded corny, hippie dippie, I sounded like someone who only listens to The Grateful Dead, has hair down to the floor and wears sandals and anklets. Emma smiled and nodded slowly, the kind of smile that shows surrender, the kind of smile that says ‘you just don’t get it’.

“Yeah, I think you can either live accidentally or incidentally. Like there’s no perfect blueprint. You’re going to get it wrong either way, it’s just about what wrongs you can live with.” God, I thought to myself. What a horribly bleak and defeatist way to see things.

“My sister’s friends,” Emma jumped in, as if she heard my thoughts, “the ones who went into acting and art, they’re not heroes. They’re not even, like, martyrs.” The traffic started to slowly move. Emma took a drag. “They’re just people. And a lot of them are really miserable. You can smell it on them, like a kind of stale misery. Like they thought being different, or cracking the code, finding the way out of our horrible and, uh, limiting way of life, was going to make them feel better. But, it just made them feel more alone.”

“Yeah, I know you mean,” I said, and the surrender on Emma’s face found its way to my voice. I was quiet and defenceless without meaning to be. I hated myself as I came out with a meagre “But at least they tried.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “I think most people are trying.” She sounded hurt, and I hated that I hurted her. We were both two broken girls, feeling everything real slowly melt from us. The minute buzz from the night before had turned to flatness, that heavy, cotton-wool feeling that makes all noise slow down and the sound of the music from the car speaker felt like a dizzy dream, and our friendship felt like echoes. All our words had been said looking out of a window, never once looking at each other, as if this was a confession booth. It didn’t matter that we weren’t trying, it just mattered that we weren’t trying for each other anymore.

“And sometimes,” Emma added, “the ones who are still chasing are the most bitter. Because they built their whole personality on someday winning and now they’re stuck in the eternal waiting room. My sister’s friends are angry and resentful towards the world. It’s too much for me. I just want things to be calm. In my life and in my mind.”

“I just think,” I said, swallowing something sharp in my mouth, “it’s dangerous and scary either way. You’re always going to sell out, but you either sell out to comfort, or you sell out to pride.”

Emma smirked at this, a condescending smirk, a smirk at this statement of cliche nature. “Pick your poison,” she sighed.

We slipped back into silence and we threw our cigarettes out the window as the traffic moved forward. The air was hot and viscous, like breathing in through a sweaty towel, and the sun was the colour of an overripe peach. There was a silence that wasn’t peaceful, but wasn’t hostile, just too dense with all the things we both wanted to say, but were too scared would come out wrong. It didn’t feel like a fight. It grew out of being a disagreement. It was like we were both looking at the same cracked thing from different angles, trying to describe it in words that didn’t quite fit anything, and trying not to blame the other person for seeing it wrong.

Emma turned up the music. Watching the Wheels by John Lennon blasted into the car- that tired, easy shrug of a song, full of stubborn, cruel peace. We both sat there, staring straight ahead, not speaking, but both of us thinking about chasing, and how not chasing anything didn’t have to mean losing.