palace of winds

I slip easily westward with the other morning commuters; eastbound cars grow thicker, slower, and like clockwork I count my luck, the thought a daily touchstone, worn half-meaningless by habit. It’s nice, sometimes, to be going the opposite direction to most people.

And then there is the Interchange tower and I am woken from the mindless autopilot of my commute. I stare at it for a moment. The sky ahead is a nearly uniform slate blue, a thick dark muddle of clouds promising rain soon. Behind me it is still light, the rising sun making a deep orange light through the growing cover, and it’s this reflecting off the towering building, making the front a glinting golden grid. It’s…ugly, I think, the thought finally catching words. At the moment it’s vigorously ugly. The tallest thing on the landscape by far, and against the backdrop of the coming storm it’s garish, glowing. It eclipses everything lovely, dwarfing the redeeming carpeting of trees just across the freeway. For this moment, in this light, it’s aggressively hideous and demanding all attention.

Something in me recoils a little, worries over this whole suburb thing, but thankfully in another minute I’m past the building and I don’t need to think about it any more. It’s much too early for that.