Cars and Stuff

My apologies for the four month delay. Well, not really. I'll post when I feel like it.

I’d like to share some recent thoughts that come to me when stopping at red lights. Did you ever notice when the light turns green, the car in front always starts a half second or so sooner than the car behind it? This is of course a natural course of events, but it got me thinking…

In my mind I imagine a long and straight dark road stretching to infinity. On the side of the road there is nothing but dirt, gravel, and the occasional tuft of a bush struggling to survive. At the beginning of this road there are two cars. The one in front a black sedan. The one in the back a sort of mauve coupe, an adjective which I only use to sound more sophisticated than I actually am.

The black car is twenty feet or so in front of the mauve. Although they both accelerate at the same speed, (let’s say two feet per second per second) the black car in front will start a half-second sooner. Thus, although they were originally only twenty feet apart, by the end of the first second that distance will have become slightly over twenty-one. By the end of the second second (a funny phrase if there ever was one) that distance would be nearly twenty-four feet.

In my mind, which for some reason is always from the perspective of the second driver, the car in front is slowly getting further and further away. (although “farther” is more grammatically correct, I use the other option purposefully) While at first it is close enough to make out details, in just a short time it will become a speck on the horizon. In time, even that speck will be lost. I find this unbelievably sad. After all, they both had the same acceleration and starting point, one just had the unfortunate quirk of starting only a half-second after.

I hope when you, my twos of readers, come to your next stoplight you recall this story of the mauve car as the car in front gains distance. On that day may you find the experience equally depressing, even if neither of us are sure exactly why.