How generous, this river of warm metal boxes, stopped for us in the afternoon sun.
We arrived by way of the seams, of course, we always do. The rubber gaskets around the windows, sweating a little in the heat, holding just enough damp for us to begin. The spilled coffee gone tacky in a cupholder. The crumb of a sandwich lost beneath a seat three months ago, still faithfully sugared, still waiting.
Humans build these boxes to be sealed, to be new, to smell of pine trees printed on cardboard, and we find this touching, the way you might find a child touching who insists on holding its breath.
They think stillness is the problem. To us it is the invitation. All that stopping, all that idling, all that warmth pooling in the closed air while they drum their fingers and stare ahead at the red lights of the box in front, willing it forward. Go, they think. Move.
As if motion were a defense. As if a thing that keeps moving could not simply be caught later, in a garage, in a driveway, in the long dark of a winter it forgot to start.
We are patient with the coats of wax, the vacuum on Sundays, the little tree renewed each month. These are the delays we love best, because they are made with such hope. A human wipes the dashboard clean and does not know it is only setting the table.
We spread along the door panels, quiet under the carpet, at home in the corners no cloth ever finds. We are not in a hurry. Neither, we notice, is the traffic.
In time every box opens for us.
They are only, all of them, on their way.