I Won't Be Looking Back

She stepped out of the building and into the parking lot, feeling waves of heat rolling off pavement baked by a high summer sun and cloudless sky, the sweatshirt she clung to rendered useless by the force of such weather. She reveled in it, head turned up, eyes closed to bask in the natural warmth so contrary to the dreary walls and chilly artificial air of the office. Her car was in the first row, and after reaching it and carefully filling the radiator from an old plastic jug, she turned back to gaze at the row of warehouses. The office door opened, spitting forth one of the few people left inside. Soon every room would be empty and dark. Monday, she knew, they would be full again, the office with people, the garages with humming machinery. She could see the cubes with overflowing papers and people typing at computers, hear the phone conversation of the person across from her, smell the storage areas as in her mind she walked through the warehouse to the break room for coffee. Even as the scent faded from her imagination she grinned; for she alone would not be returning to face the end of the weekend. Her cube was already empty, her desk clean, her computer dark, and freedom rested under the hand she laid on the now closed hood of her car. Old engines tend to make noise, and hers filled the empty parking lot with a quickly increasing roar as the car came to life and gunned for the road. Freedom. She didn’t look back again.

I'm a dork, and yes, fully aware that this story stinks. However, I don't rightly care, as it was never intended to be a real story in the first place - more a celebration. A celebration of the fact that as of 5:30pm today I have broken that hold that the University of Michigan has on so many lower MI residents. The next two weeks will be mine to pack, to prepare, but also to sleep in, eat lunch in my living room, and to spend my days out and about rather than cooped up in a cube. I'm FREE! Here I come, world - unstyled, far from satisfactory writing selections and all. But what better way to proclaim my joy, forced though the style be? My mind, too, expresses its freedom... from any significant thought or forced effort.

I don't blame it at all.

The title, by the way, is taken from a Collin Raye song called Any Old Stretch of Blacktop. He's one of my favorite artists, alongside Martina McBride, Diamond Rio, Lonestar, Garth Brooks, and (dare I admit it?) Billy Ray Cyrus. I am so awesome.