The flow.

Trees looking like thick, black nerve endings silhouetted against the sunrise. They seem to spin and dance to show off how they've grown to compensate for wind, wires and sunlight. But I'm the one in motion. I'm not really moving, just staring at each new thing that comes up while we speed down the road.

I could do this all day. Just ride around and watch the world react to itself for hour after hour.

I could watch that grumpy old woman, who consistently muscles her way forward to get onto the bus first, as she begins to crack a smile at the bouncing baby in the opposite seat.

A girl of about 7 looks up and gives someone a beautiful smile. From person to person the smile spreads at least 10 people deep.

The bus driver stops and gets off the bus. Through the soiled window I see him run to a paper box and reach in. He comes back with an arm load of "Red -Eye" papers and hands them out to passengers to read.

Outside trees spin before us. Other buses hide at underpasses waiting for their schedule to start. People with weathered looking faces run and bike along the lake. It's March, amateur hour hasn't started yet so there's minimal competition for the walkways. The city rises up before us like a jagged set of grey teeth. In that city will be windows filled with very well dressed plastic bodies that have no heads. Construction cranes everywhere promise that soon the view one paid a few extra grand to have will be gone. Women march along in heels. A Staples shares a building with a dermatologist. Their signs mush together on the facade and somehow Botox comes off as an office supply.

I have to get off this bus and go to that job. FUCK! Not the job again! I shouldn't be there, not again, not today. I should be at home finishing that painting. Yeah, the one inspired by my day job, that one. Like it or not the rhythm which takes me away from the real work feeds the real work. "go with the flow!" one of my co-workers tells me. Yeah, the cash flow.