1 post tagged “emotions”

Let’s talk probabilities.
My route intersects a handful of busy roads. Although they can be typed by their properties, each intersection offers it’s own set of unique variables based on geographical location, time of day, and likelihood of being run over by a heartless moron.
My first major intersection is a six lane highway crossing a four lane road with turn lanes in each direction. It is the main artery for morning traffic to the downtown area, and even though my commute starts well before morning rush hour, traffic is heavy enough to be confusing.
As I approach, I survey the terrain taking note of the light sequence. I have to cross twice, so whether I cross the four lane first or second depends on which set of lights are green. This morning it is the six lane that is go, so I start to cross the four lane looking over my shoulder first.
The real threat at any intersection is turning cars. Whether it’s a sneaky right hand turn, or someone gunning a left across traffic, either can spell death, or, at the least, a cracked skull. A women in her fifties with a convenience perm eyes at me coldly, her right hand flasher blaring an angry yellow. The way her lips sit frozen in a horizontal line signals a threatening disposition. I stop as she doesn’t hesitate coming close to the curb, her mouth salivating for a taste of my spilt blood, her beady eyes glaring at me through the passenger side window.
As the rush of semi’s, SUV’s, trucks, and the occasional economy class come rushing by, I cross, uneasy of the speeding drivers and their human emotions.
Shortly after crossing the six lane, I coast down a quiet side street for several blocks then hit a busier but wider four lane road. Light traffic dominates until I hit a series of four laners feeding the downtown business district. It is these brief crossings where the statistical probability of my being smashed goes from a soothing blue to a saturated red. The rhythmic patterning of my breathing becomes erratic as I lift my head from the immediate pavement and process all the factors of a very real time problem.
And this is how I approach my impending love life. As I adopt the bachelor title, I shrug off the suggestion of the bar culture I must become apart of by virtue of my new definition. In the gradating scale of probability, my hope of finding a meaningful relationship in a judgment impaired environment of desperation is a cold blue. Getting laid on the other hand, a steaming red.
As I survey the landscape for potential mates, I factor in the variables and assign color values to the various places I can invest my time. The library, a moderate green. A film festival in the arts district, a warm orange.
But in all the places in this city I have evaluated, there isn’t a single red. My chances of finding a girl are less than my chances of getting my skull cracked.
But it doesn’t pay to be rational in love. Riding a bike through busy downtown roads is a game of measured risk, but crashing into a relationship with a member of the opposite sex is an occurrence that once transpires must be dealt with through compromise and work. Red, green, blue, it doesn’t matter, the factors are too numerous to calculate, and many of them are well beyond anyone’s control.
And the probability of that accident happening blankets the landscape in red, whether amorous or contentious, it’s all the sum of human emotions.