Hope For a Lost World

It was late afternoon, September 16, 2023. I was in a yellow cab. The back seat smelled of exhaust and cheap perfume. To my relief, the wind soon dissipated the mephitis, and with it my slight nausea. I had rolled down the windows, despite the weather. Clouds hung over the highway, pissing rain as my driver sped further from O’Hare. Shot shocks jounced us over the highway. Only moments into our commute, an impossible line of traffic charged toward us like a train in reverse. The city was still miles out. There was no way I was checking into my hotel anytime soon. Ever beleaguered by modern travel, I sighed before my driver exclaimed, “I got you!” We cut left. The exit looked to be a mile ahead. Upon the semblance of a shoulder, we blazed past endless vehicles parked in the fast lane. “Fuck yes.” I uttered appreciation for the recklessness. In the moment, I preferred a Midwestern crash to asphyxiation via carbon monoxide and Lucky You. “Back it,” I plainly maintained, over the whipping wind. The driver’s boisterous laugh was rich with knowing. In minutes we were on the offramp, headed for inner city gridlock.

As we crept through Chicago, my great driver told me he was from Nigeria, that Kennedy Expressway was ill-built for such influx, and that Mexican Independence Day was enough to harshly impede anyone from driving anywhere, let alone the yearly rock festival. Suddenly, he pulled to a curb. Green, white, and red streamers hung from the storefronts. Mylar and latex balloons of the same colors, strung and untethered, floated by. Throngs of the inebriated joyously marched the sidewalks. “The streets are blocked. I can’t get you all the way to the hotel. You should get out here. It’s two blocks that way,” he pointed. “You ok?” A burst of brass erupted from a nearby distance. A shirtless man in golden body paint stared through me and shrieked. I looked back to the driver from the sonic assault. “I’m ok.” I wasn’t really.