I live near the road because the double yellow lines that streak down the asphalt are glowing arrows, leading the stray soul to adventure, to possibility, to closeness, to things out of physical reach. Watching the people drive past my window changes the way the world around me spins; the veterinarian who drives quickly though respectively gives the world direction. Then the neighborhood drunk races down the road with a careless haste that trails behind him a thick veil of duple tones, screeching tires on ice and the hum of a wasted brain ticking away with no concrete thought to give his life profitable meaning. The woman walking down the street, dog loyally trailing behind, resembles the lost soul; caught in a life she always pictured yet missing her twenties and her expired sense of adventure, that would have taken her down dark hallowed alleys in a slumbering city or to conquer vast oceans in tiny sailboats with only the wind as her guide. She needlessly chases the life that willingly presents itself to her. Inattentively, she chooses the path that not only proves more stressful, but that also builds her up as a conqueror of vast oceans with but the wind to not only guide her but to submit itself to her manipulation. Does her inattention benefit her strength? Or will it slowly degrade her sense of self worth as it proves too difficult for her to overcome and allows the scars of her past to creep like spiders out of the dark and betray her once smooth skin to show deep crevices resembling those that protrude from the bark of ancient oaks well past their glory days? Will the woman slowly fade like the great oak in the oil painting by the mysterious painter with a tragic story that once hung in a bright heavily trafficked museum hall but now resides in a storage box behind locked doors, with only the eyes of the common house rat to ponder her purpose? Or will she follow the glowing arrows that carelessly streak roads across the glob