Where are they going?

All those headlights driving past you on the highway.

With screens lighting up their faces, and music blaring from their windows. With families sitting in silence for hours, and friends who can’t stop talking. Where is that couple with the baby going at this time of night?

A man dressed in an all black suit, complete with a set of all black suitcases drives away from his broken home one last time.

His twenty-something girlfriend waits in her trashed apartment for him to arrive.

In the waiting she panics and leaves, the door is unlocked and when black-on-black arrives he won’t realize she’s driving down the same highway he just came from.

She drives past you, her Kiss Me Coral lipstick smudges into her off-black mascara as tears roll down the face she put on just for him.

When a black SUV cuts her off, she swerves into the median.

The SUV keeps driving.

Everyone keeps driving.

When your favorite song comes on the radio, you have an easier time looking away.

In an hour her smashed BMW, a gift from the man waiting in her apartment, will be as remote a memory as the truck stop you went to for gas.

Another family drives by you, smushed together by luggage filled with Aloha shirts, and Disney relics.

They seem to be less uncomfortable than some of the other families you’ve seen drive past, despite their close quarters.

A little boy, about seven, naps.

He rests his head on the windowsill, while his siblings put makeup on his face, and bows in his hair.

The parents talk calmly, about gas prices, or the weather where they’re going.

The truck ahead of them moves into your lane, and they drive on.

You’ve forgotten where you put your map.

You reach one hand into the glove compartment, keeping your eyes on the road.

You can’t feel anything but old french fries and crumbled receipts.

You look away.

Only for a second, and the car behind you keeps driving.

Everyone.

Keeps.

Driving.