The White Line

I travel the white line. Its never ending presence beckons me forward while time makes a mockery of the productivity of my existence. It takes a certain amount of time to get from point A to point B. The time occupied in accomplishing this linear achievement is dead time...or is it? A number of years ago I found myself sitting at a roadside diner in Van Horn, Texas wondering where I was going. I was young and mobile, no responsibilities except the care and upkeep of the Self. I poked at the scrambled eggs and bacon with my fork and thought about the future, and of course the past. I had talked to a police recruiter in Anaheim, but this was a rather absurd notion. I was not cop material...I was possessed of a different mind set. I was too rebellious. There was some sort of innate desire in me to take a different path, perhaps one that would lead to freedom of mind and body from the swells of societies norms. Of course I was not thinking like this at the time. Things have a natural tendency to work toward the most comfortable state of being. I wasn't sure what I wanted, or where I wanted to go. And then suddenly I did. A pretty blond waitress appeared at my booth holding a pot of scalding coffee in her pretty white hand. She was probably about my age, but seemed to be possessed of a more noble state. She was smiling at me.
"More coffee hun?"
I merely nodded, smiling back, not knowing what to say, or even if I did... how to say it. I wondered where she came from, because she was not the crusty, line hardened, world weary waitress who had taken my order only a short time before. Perhaps she had been on break? Or perhaps the other waitress' shift ended. I don't know, and I didn't really care. She was here.  She left my table, but ventured back a short time later to check on me. This time I was ready to engage in conversation. She sat down across from me in the booth looking at me with her pretty blue eyes. I forgot what the conversation was about. It has been two decades, and I did not record it, but we talked for some time, two restless spirits drawn together, if only for the length of time it took for me to drink my coffee. I have never forgotten this girl, even if our paths crossed for a momentary blip. I often wonder where she is? Or what became of her? Not that it matters, for I didn't even get her name, or she, mine. Time has taken care of anything that transpired on that day. All that remains is a fragmentary illusion of what might have been.

     There were only a few other customers in the diner. A rough looking rancher who resembled Charles Bronson sat at the counter working over his plate of vittles, and every now and then he gave me a suspicious glance as if he well read my intentions. A few other cowboys sat at a table with their jeans tucked into their boots as if they might be going to a rodeo. Of course, being an Easterner I don't know much of such things. I suppose I could have held there indefinitely drinking cup after cup until I began shaking the caffeine from my system, but it was time to go, and reluctantly I paid the pretty waitress, leaving a substantial tip, and like a cowboy rode off into the sunset...or in this case sunrise as it was morning, and I was headed East... following the white line...or does the white line follow me? It is all the same.