300 Miles with Marcel Proust

I kissed my eight month old niece and whispered, while her father was not looking: "Don't grow up too fast, baby girl". I hopped on the car, slided down the window and waved goodbye.

A second from now, she will not remember any of my affection, nor the memory of the moment because life is mushrooming in wonderment in her senses. Her eyes glowed the first time she saw me and her legs kicked the first time i carried her; but i doubted if she could bridge that sensation to some kind of form or name in her recollection, and create ripples on the pool of her emotional intelligence.

Fifteen minutes into my drive, the traffic slowed abruptly, cutting the lanes from five to one, as the wreckage of a collision were being cleared. An upturned car, crumpled like a half-spread accordion, dangled on its crunched roof, the weight so hardpressed i could not see any sign of the driver.

I passed the incident, feeling the flightiness of fate brushed my being amidst the screaming heat of the desert highway.

Crossing the sky above were wild ducks in their "V" formation migrating to their feeding site. "Where do they go?". Holden Caulfield asked the same stupid question again and again.

Down the road between innocence and vulgarity, i keep looking for myself but....

Maybe my little niece has a better answer.