a few days ago, i went to school unprepared. i was running late -- too late to take the train to school and besides, it was cold and rainy. so i drove all the way downtown. stupidly, i had put on my green converse sneakers that morning, and there were puddles everywhere. all through class my feet were wet and i could feel my toes wrinkling up just like i was taking a bath. class dragged itself out and eventually ended, and i went back out and got my feet even wetter and colder and jumped into my car to battle my way through rush hour on the stevenson expressway. i yanked off my shoes and even my socks and blasted the heat down onto my feet and the socks and shoes, hoping they'd dry by the time i got home. the car warmed up fast -- too fast, but my bare feet were feeling so nice on the pedals, with the warmth blowing on them like there was a fireplace... so i cracked open the windows and left the heat on. the cool, damp air went around my ears and the heater hitting the wet socks smelled like someone ironing. i was listening to belle and sebastian, feeling cozy in the trickling-slow-traffic, when the strangest thing happened. see, on interstate 55, between lake shore drive (downtown) and 96th avenue (home), there's a sewage treatment plant, a bunch of factories, trainyards, and other stinky places. but right at the end of that trip, there are the Holsum and Wonder Bread bakeries. somehow, the wind shifted just right -- the entire ride home, the air was thick with the smell of fresh bread. the oncoming, northbound traffic was moving much faster than me, buzzing softly. in the corners of my windshield were salt crystals, like the ones your eyelashes get when you've been crying for far too long, and then "the chalet lines" came on the tape deck. and then i was torn to pieces. i guess it was the leftover bits of stress from my day. stress over my wet feet and the broken traffic lights ... and other things too. things like the bakery smells, the warm air, the sound of traffic slicing through the puddles of oil and rainwater ... the peaceful giant daffodil street lamps coming on overhead, glowing orange in the dusk ... stuart singing sadly over piano and strings ... suddenly i got really emotional. i started thinking about this story that's been on the news lately, about this fellow who took over his father's crematorium when he was ill... and they had a bunch of technical problems, and the man didn't know how to take care of them, so -- in a pinch -- he started taking the bodies and pretending to burn them, giving out urns filled with ashes of wood, dumping the bodies on a remote piece of family property out near dekalb or kankakee or something. child-sized coffins. cadavers lying sprawled in their sunday best, gazing at the stars. some half-buried. i wonder if that man's okay. i think he was denied bail -- the courts were worried for his own safety from the families of the "victims." (can you call them victims if they're dead?) i mean, he was probably just a heartless, money-grubbing bastard. but i keep picturing this scared kid getting flustered and upset and confused over his machines not working -- overwhelmed at first by his feelings of inadequacy -- wishing he'd paid more attention before his father had gotten ill -- terrified of disappointing the family -- and in a panic, taking that first body out to the woods, sobbing; conflicted and completely alone. the sleepless nights, the growing cycle of horridness and fear. maybe it became an addiction, throwing these bodies into the woods. wishing he could trade places with the dead. loneliness, despair, sorrow. i was nearly in tears. my mind drifted down archer avenue, as willow springs and the forests give way to justice and its late nite mom-n-pop diners. bethania cemetery and then resurrection mary. the pale mausoleum, somber, with her high square columns framing a gloomy corinthian face. the corn products factory across the street, making the air foul and the slow decline of the speed limit as archer passes into summit, with her burrito joints and carnecerias under the rumble of midway and the freightyards. later that night, i got into a huge fight with my best friend, about politics. all of a sudden, he just started telling me all sorts of things he doesn't like about me. it turned into this long catalogue of faults and problems... and i could feel all the tears i'd held in from the day start welling up again in my eyes. he saw them, and he stopped, and he looked at me, scared, like he'd broken something fragile, and i was overcome with the strangest feeling: that he looked exactly like the boy from my daydreams about the crematorium. the look on his face was just what i'd been picturing, and suddenly i was a dead body in the woods, staring at the sky, oblivious to the cold or the darkness, without any fear of animals or nakedness or silence. it was like i died. you know what they say about your life flashing before your eyes? well maybe when you really die, that's what happens. all i know is that for me, at that moment, i was filled to overflowing with one particular memory. i was on a cramped overnight bus, going from poland to holland. the bus was dark -- it was two o'clock in the morning, we were someplace in germany, and there was an accident on the highway -- not 200 yards in front of the bus, an oil tanker tipped over and exploded. i was the only english speaker on the bus. i sat there exhausted, my legs cramping up, listening to the man snoring next to me. the confused murmurs in polish of the passengers, the glow of the fire in front of us, the sirens of the german fire trucks -- i felt so alone, so thrilled and terrified, even in my sleepiness and my discomfort. the pale green fluorescent lighting on the bus had made everyone's skin look sick -- like a race of humans from the future, people who had never seen the sun -- and the strangeness of the german sirens might have been spaceships, or laser guns. i was listening to radiohead's amnesiac on my minidisc player, an album i'd acquired months before its actual release, and pull pulk revolving doors had just come on. the moon was low and gibbous, almost full. there were so many secrets -- i was so alone on that bus in the darkness ... scared and sleepy, sore, feeling absolutely pregnant with beauty and otherworldliness. time seemed to stop. the ambulances and fire trucks couldn't get around the concrete barrier on the highway median, and they'd gone past us, probably several miles behind to find a gap to drive through. their screaming faded, and the fire kept blazing. gradually the sirens returned from behind us, forcing their way through the thickness of the stopped traffic. no one could move. it was hours before the fire could be put out, and the wreckage cleared from the road. it seems a lifetime ago, though it was less than a year -- and while i started bawling in front of my friend, the thing in my brain was the driver of that overturned truck, who died that night, in a giant fireball. the thing in my brain was the cremator lying quietly awake in his dark jail cell. my tears were for the giant mausoleum, the great rows of cemetaries, the burrito houses and the bread factories. all the dying and the commerce it was for. the corn products. the endless rain. the smell of cinnamon on the highway. love, baker,baker __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? 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