Going Home

I took a taxi home late last night.

As I sat in the taxi, I closed my eyes. I knew the corners and the biggest of the potholes on the road and could feel how the taxi driver was not so familiar with the roads in our special area of the city. The real fun starts when we drove through the roundabout for this means I am at the beginning of my street, Respublycanska!   At that moment I know a smile flashed across my face as we drove past the 1^st of the little stores on the street and then there is the narrowing of the road and the first few bumps! The road is smooth and other then a quick whiff of the garbage all is good. It is after this that the road changes. The swerving begins as the taxi works at avoiding the small caverns that come out of nowhere and right before the biggest of potholes there is small lake that we wade through...

The best part of the lake is the smell that seems to melt into the vehicle. It is offensive and one wonders how it happened to come upon you so quickly, without warning! It seeps into every poor of your body and makes you want to run before you would become infected with it.

Next comes the pothole that vehicles crawl over. Even with my eyes closed, I know that the driver is sitting up watching the road carefully, trying hard to have the tires in just the right spot so not to hit the bottom of the car... it really is not a pothole … for ants it would be like the Rocky Mountains stretching from Canada down into America!

After you pass through the worst of the trenches you can breathe a sigh of relief. I had been holding my breath (because of the stench) and I say silently to myself, I am almost home! My eyes open and I gather my bags. We have reached Magnet (out small local grocery store) with only a last few sharp turns of the wheel as the taxi dodges the biggest of the holes. He starts to slow down as I get my money out as I calmly direct him to the next driveway... we are 136V! e(mphasis on the “V”) He stops and I hand him the money as I step out into the dirt and mud.