The Truck After Midnight

I went looking for purpose
the way some men go looking for sunshine,
with no real plan
except to leave the buildings behind.

The city fell away in mirrors.
Glass became gravel.
Noise became wind.
I drove toward the mountains
because they looked like answers
from a distance.

I drove toward the sea
because I thought maybe God
kept his voice there,
folded into the waves
where no one could interrupt him.

On the way, I saw foxes
slipping through the tall grass
like red thoughts.
I saw deer lift their heads
from the edge of the trees,
calm and terrified and alive.

None of them asked why they were here.
None of them seemed ashamed
of wanting only to live.

I danced through fields of flowers
with the wind moving cool through my shirt.
I let the sun lay its hands on my face.
I stopped naming everything
and watched the world
continue without needing me
to understand it.

By dusk, I found wine country.
A little town tucked between hills,
all golden windows
and crooked laughter.

I drank with locals
who knew the names of storms,
who spoke of grapes like children,
who laughed so hard
the night need not lean in
to hear us.

Then I drove again.

Past fences.
Past farms.
Past signs that warned me
I was almost nowhere.

And somewhere deep in that almost,
my car lay down like a tiered steed.

No gas.
No map.
Just the road
and the dark
and my own ridiculous heart
beating like it had somewhere to be.

A truck stopped after midnight.

The driver leaned across the empty seat
and opened the door.

He had kind eyes,
the kind that made you feel
he had already forgiven you
for things you had not confessed yet.

He asked,
“What brings you this far out
with no plan?”

I told him,
“You have to let go of your plans
if you want to meet God.”

He smiled like a man
hearing an old song
played badly,
but with feeling.

We rode in silence for a while.

The highway opened ahead of us
black and endless.
The stars burned above the windshield
like small holes
poked in the roof of the world.

I asked him
if he had seen a lot
in all his travels.

He kept his eyes on the road.

“More than enough,” he said.
“But not nearly all of it.”

When the city rose again
in the blue hour before morning,
it looked softer than when I left it.
Less like a cage.
More like a place
where people kept trying.

He dropped me off
exactly where I had started.

Before I closed the door,
I asked him,
“Do you know what your purpose is?”

He looked at me then.

Not through me.
Not past me.
At me.

And he said,
“Purpose is in nothing
and in everything.”

Then he smiled,
and for a second
the whole cab filled with morning.

I turned to thank him,
but the truck was already gone.

No engine growl.
No brake light.
No diesel smoke.

Just the road,
empty and shining,
and a single fox
standing at the edge of the city
watching me like it knew
I had been brought home.