91519

The speaker describes a feeling of warmth and contentment while watching the scenery pass by from a moving vehicle. They compare the sensation to the anticipation felt before an airplane lands. The speaker reflects on the smoothness of the ride and the tranquility of the late-night journey. The experience ends when they reach their destination and awaken their father. It must be pretty cold out there by now, or it would be with all the wind rushing by, but I am warm, sitting in content concentration, watching the turns, through hills and trees and highway, as conversation ceases, speed increases. It feels like I felt once when in an airplane, landing at night, but not the moment of the landing, but the one before, when the wheels are due to hit the asphalt and the guiding lines are rushing by. That moment is the one that I am sitting in now. I couldn't be on the road, I am above it, waiting. The ride is still too smooth for me to be on wheels. Whatever bumps I feel are only turbulence. The moment lasts as its thrill passes, stretching out to a tranquil half an hour, gliding amongst fellow late-nighters, until I'm too far from convenience for their light to continue to pollute my view. I land as the road turns to dirt, startling my father awake, back upon the earth, and then we are home.