I stir to the sound of a girl humming… tuneless yet cheerful. I keep my eyes shut tight trying to remember where on earth I could be. I’m lying on my side and the humming sound is coming from behind my head. I hear banging, unidentified objects knocking against each other, the swish swash of water splashing up and down against the sides of a bucket.

Opening one eye a fraction of a fraction I make out stained peach wall paper with faded purple leaves and faint green stripes. The humming has stopped, I shut my eyes again.

I feel hungover though I know I didn’t drink last night. I haven’t drunk for days now.

And yet I have that feeeeeeling. The tired red eyes, the aching bones banging about in this increasingly stretching bag of skin.

A sharp knock on the door reveals my location with a sleepy Mexican drawl announcing “housekeeping”. I lay still for a second, stretch my tired body, before rising and stumbling towards the door. No thanks, I croak at the grinning maid, place the do not disturb sign on my door, attempt a smile, shut the door and collapse back into bed.

This time I’m woken by my alarm. There’s no escaping it. Groaning inwardly, I switch it off, stumble towards the shower and let the hot water engulf me, washing away the sleep and sweat. Shaving carelessly I nick my throat and see the droplets of blood wash away on the shower floor joining the water and becoming one rapidly fading pinkish stream as it circles down the drain to who knows where through who knows what to some far away ocean.

In the breakfast lounge – I’m always catching the very tail end of breakfast - some ex marine is trying to impress himself upon two pretty young things who look like sisters. I’m only half listening, but pick up reference to rare promotion, and if I’d only… I wonder what extraordinary lives other people lead, and how different to mine they are. Every person in every car that drives down every road leading people to numerous houses, hotels, motels, apartments… What are they doing? Who are they? Where do they go? I flirt with the idea of introducing myself and asking these questions to this peculiar group of 3, but instead quell my intrigue pour a luke warm cup of bitter brown liquid into a small white polystyrene cup and stare at it wondering why it is I’ve conditioned myself to believe this will make me feel alert. More awake. Better about myself. The reality is instead a slight sensation of nausea and paranoia, seeping through my body. Mmmmm. I smack my lips, and go through the motion of enjoying the drink. The fruit is all gone, but there’s a handful of slices of processed white sugary bread that looks unappealing at best. Nonetheless I place it in the toaster and when it pops up burned black on both sides, I consider smearing grape jelly on the charcoal, change my mind, have another sip of my now cold coffee and throw everything in the trash. It’s time to hit the road, Florida is calling and the drive from New York took 6 hours longer than it should have due to an intense snow storm.

On more than one occasion we considered pulling over last night. It was a blinding, white, icy cold blanket. It started off beautifully, big fat fluffy snow flakes falling lazily from the thick dark grey clouds… Each individual snow flake careening into the window, clumsily disintegrating against the windshield. The wipers would remove them, their blades sweeping aside the lost lives of the snowflakes, and unceremoniously discarding them to the road side where they grew into miniature mountains and compacted into dirty white mounds of rock hard ice. Tires would lock and slide from one lane to the other, the steering wheel rendered useless and the passengers merely along for the ride, whichever direction the vehicle chose to take. We laughed out loud with fearless bold laughter only our knuckles whiter than the snow itself giving away our true feelings.

As we crept along the road in the increasing darkness, with the sleet and snow getting thicker and heavier, the mood went from boisterous to silent. Continuing may result in tragedy, but pulling over would have the heavy snow build up around the van, burying it and making it impossible to continue even when the snow did pass.

So we continued. Slowly but steadily. Crazy drivers hurtling past us to the left and the right the white snow having blanketed the entire road so it was indistinguishable as to where the lanes began and ended, where it turned, where the ditches on either side of the road began and where the road stopped. The only indication to where the ditches on the side of the road began were the abandoned littered cars along the road side. Some crashed into trees, the bonnet buckled and folded in two… some with tow trucks trying to extract them from the powdery desert of snow, still others on their side or completely flipped resting on their roofs the wheels staring up at the thick black sky.

We got to talking. Regaling each other with tales of our childhood. Disaffected youth. Displaced. Not disadvantaged, just bored. Frustrated by our respective environments. I realised how lucky we were. 3 meals a day. Free education. Free healthcare. It’s incredible what you take for granted. I think perhaps the need to find oneself and react against your environment is a privilege awarded only to those who grow up not wanting. Reckless abandonment. Setting fire to letterboxes, smoking tea and drinking cheap red wine til you forget. Running across the roofs and bonnets of cars parked bumper to bumper in a line stretching round the corner of someone elses street. Stealing cars, crashing cars, listless, bored, desperate to find an outlet to channel frustration. Unable to communicate with anyone other than those experiencing the same frustrations. The suburbs. Television society. TV dinners, family time around a box. Don’t talk over the television. Only in the adverts. Creativity, individuality stifled. Conform. Don’t dress like that, don’t listen to that, don’t smoke that. So of course we want to listen to that, we do dress like that, and we smoke anything and everything we can get our hands on every opportunity we get.

We discuss what it would be like to grow up as the jock. The popular kid. The prom queen. 2.4 children, picket fence. Aspiring to that as a way of living. Who are those people. What drives them? Are they happy? Does complacency breed content? Are they in fact complacent? Perhaps they are just content? We decide we are not content, but neither are we complacent. I decide I never want to be content. I never want to be complacent. Then change my mind and mull over the meaning of content. The meaning of complacency. In my pocket, there’s a girl poaching pears, packing her belongings and questioning her every move. She smiles.

Pulling over to a diner it’s 3am. Some highway waffle house dive. The interior is tobacco stained yellow and the dimly lit neon sign announcing the name of our chosen dining establishment reads “fle ho s” the filthy muddy frozen sludge beneath our feet blending into the fresh white snow as we traipse into the room. We get looks ranging from disgusted to disinterested with our long hair, tattoos, and skinny tight “faggot” jeans. Our fellow diners sport checked shirts, baseball caps, sleeveless puffy jackets, jeans and boots. Most are wearing beards and all rapidly return to pushing their food around their plate, whether sitting in solitude, or with a pal, not a word uttered in the whole joint just the dull buzz of an electric light over the grill.

The waitress sizes us up and asks for our order. We eat grilled cheese, egg and cheese, grits, pancakes, beef burgers, we order stale coffee and coke, unlimited refills. A young girl wanders over to the jukebox and puts on “my girl” (not the jesus and mary chain version) and instantly everything is perfect. The coffee tastes fresher, the plate of hash browns feel crisp, hot, hearty. The diner feels warmer, the fresh snow outside looks soft, and fluffy, as if you could sink into a bed of blankets of soft fluffy powdery white snow. The cowboy truckers smile and gentle whispers of conversation begin to interweave throughout the room. We polish off our meals, tip the waitress and hop back  into our van. 4 more hours to go and the snow seems to be easing.

There’s something about driving. It’s relaxing. Soothing even. Yet mentally demanding when it’s hours upon hours upon hours. The same 5 people every day. The same morning routine, the same people wanting coffee at the same time, The same people wanting toilet breaks. We drive and drive and drive. Through snow, through sunshine, through hills, along coastline, down free ways, through back roads, through cities, around cities.

Easy on the curves, picking up on the straights… We drive we drive we drive.