In Front of Me

I stared at the front windshield. It was dirty. I don’t know why it bothered me so much–I could still see out just fine and the sky gave no promise of sunshine–but the film that irregularly coated the glass was an obstacle that I could not get my awareness around. It was there, and I could not stand it because I could not get rid of it.

It was too cold. Every time I pushed in the windshield cleaner button, nothing came out. The carwashes were closed on account of the temperature being below freezing. There was nothing I could do to clear the spots before my eyes. They were there, making the world around me seem more hazy and dark than it really was.

Hitting the brakes, I slowed down and watched the mess of cars in front of me. There were always too many people in the world on Friday. Every other day of the week was fine, except for Friday. Somehow, thousands of people that didn’t exist on any other day flocked out to the roads and made frequent use of their brakes and blinkers. I had awhile to wait.

To amuse myself, I fantasized about cleaning my windshield. Once I got home, I decided that I was going to get a bucket of steaming hot water and a rag, despite the cold. Lifting up the windshield wipers, I would take the rag along the edge of them, since they smeared the dirt and only made the problem worse. Then, sitting on the hood, I would get the rag soaking wet in burning water, and slap it on the glass before cleaning. I imagined how disgusting and brown the rag would look when I was done. My fingers would be red, and I would be shivering, but my windshield would be clean. I wondered if I wanted to use any kind of soap or not . . .

Of course, I really wasn’t going to do it. On dark days like this one, I found it hard to motivate myself into doing anything, and on cold days I never wanted to spend any time outside. Still, my dirty windshield was driving me crazy.