accentuated features.

We were staring out the windows of my car. Different windows. He was sitting shotgun. I had offered him a ride home from wherever it was I ran into him. We ran into each other. To be nice. Because, I'm nice. Nice enough to spare 10 minutes there and then probably 15 back. Time seems to go slower when you're walking away from something. Especially if you don't know what that something is. Could be nothing.Which is still something. If we're talking things. "Why do people call it shotgun." I kept thinking that. But thinking it like it was a statement not a question. Final. Shotguns are pretty final.

I was driving, so I was staring out the windshield. That's where you stare if you're driving. He was staring out the right window, sometimes straight ahead like me, and then periodically looked to his left where I was, then out the window again. Trees with leaves, new ones, green and tender. Sometimes it seems like people's heads are on a swivel. Like a swivel chair. Distracted. The kind found in offices where people don't like whatever it is they're doing. Which is most people. I'm a person. Like that. That is. Not for forever.

He kept looking at me like he wanted to say something. Or maybe I put that on. I likely put that on. Everyone puts on a different version of themselves depending on who they're with. Puts on the idea of what they should be, failing reality. It's dumb. Because at the end. Down to brass tacks. We're always all going to be ourselves. And if you're an unreal version of yourself then that's just who you are. The kind of person that isn't comfortable being their true self, so then they just become that. That crappier version of their own reality. A caricature. Like the kind drawn for couples at Disney World. Or Navy Pier. Or Battery Park. Big eyes bigger, thin smile thinner, accentuated features. 

But we weren't there or anywhere, and our features were just as they were. Simply sitting in my car at a red light. It had only been about five seconds. The air kicked in. Time passed. Orange: ten, nine, eight, and so on. The song switched, Pandora reminded us of the cost of programming, and the light changed. Looked out the window. Trees glazed in green. Looked behind, and forward again. Caught his glance. And a nice offer of a ride becomes a game because no one can be themselves all the time, further validating how much of yourself you perhaps aren't or are. Who speaks first and what about? The truth is, it didn't matter. And doesn't. And won't. But it'd be nice if it did. If things weren't what you knew they were the whole time. If the caricature of the person to your right wasn't just that -- a caricature. If final wasn't final and we weren't who we were. If.