Maybe it was just that I hadn’t listened to the radio in some years, but I felt as though the 405 was escorting me into a future that [was for me, yet] had nothing to do with me: a surprise party planned by a stranger.

The ad readers rattle off conditions at a speed like falling and in a tone like an attempt to whisper over club music. A stifled shout. Without the perspective of the Rockies around me, I felt so much closer to the clouds. Of course, the opposite was true. Feelings were the first liars, and that’s a lie too.

An old friend uses new words to tell me what we’ve known for years. We wonder, How did we end up here? And we know, not how to explain it, but that it’ll be the same thing that gets us where we’re going—a highway built before we were born.

“STILL HERE” was first published in the collection Still and Still Moving, which is available in paperback and hardcover on Bookshop.com, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.