Paul J Penton – Songwriter

Highway – Daily Object Writing Oct 22

To me it always seems to be like wading through quick drying lead, this driving long distances- usually on a highway. Once up to the limit my hands become heavy magnets, attracted to the steering wheel, they lightly manouver the car round corners and up and down hills and dales. The road talks to the car in lumps and bumps. The car speaks back to the road in a whisper of tyres that also murder cats eyes. The highway licks just a little more life out of the tyres mile by mile. The highway does it’s best to mesmerise and hypnotise through those flashing white lines, they seem to caChinka caChunka past like crash barriers on the side of the road.

Stopping for petrol, the motor groans, ticks and creeks with relief as another barrel of best Arabian is syphoned into the tank and out of the wallet. The hot motor sweats its body odour of hot oil and ozonic electronic ignition. On the road, the CD player sings through a rotation of fast paced action songs trying to keep my head level and alert as the heavy white lines sink in the back of my brain. Green rectangles loom and grow large giving signs of hope that you are now another twenty kilometers closer to your target- but sometimes it seems hopeless- what! another 50 to the next town! At the next convenient place, it’s burgers dripping with oily juice in flattened white rolls flame grilled to a crisp with smudges of tomato sauce, that drip into rustling virgin white paper bags…..