-H. Miller
As I flew into Los Angeles a few days before, the sun was just beginning to rise over the basin. The plane began its descent and I began to make out familiar streets, tracking my past from thousands of feet above, shocked by just how small and insignificant it all looked, is. As we got lower and lower, I could make out cars, signs on buildings, birds flying from their perches in trees heading out to scavenge for breakfast. The light must have been just right because, all of a sudden, I got lost; I was no longer looking at a city with human beings in it. It was all a farce. These palm trees were fake; these buildings were but fragile, empty shells meant to look like buildings; these cars carried no passengers, but were instead automated beings fulfilling their only function: go straight, turn here, stop, go, turn, stop, go, honk, yield, turn, park, wait, wait, wait, wait. I was looking down upon a fictional world, designed for a toy-train enthusiast to complete his fantasy. The landing gear drops down and my heart begins to beat quicker, quicker; sweat fills my palms and an overwhelming anxiety fills my mind. I don't want to descend into this. Anything to keep this vantage point, this realization, this disconnect. It all just seemed so absurd, but real for the first time. I want to stay there forever. The plane lands and the moment is gone. I get picked up in a car, drive along those same streets, straight, stop, accelerate, turn, yield, blinker, stop. I enter those buildings I once thought were shells, now so far away it seems as if in a dream, order my coffee and bagel and forget what I never knew and didn't see.
Later, many days later, I walked down a street that needs no name because it is any street. The winter sun was beginning to decline behind the Santa Monica mountains, creating a quality of light that reminded me of the sunrise that welcomed me into this city. I looked at a house across the way. This manicured home is someone's ideal notion of comfort, a place they work day-after-day for so they can afford to call it "home". I stared at it and could only see that train set again, some enormous facade to complete someone else's fantasy. Or maybe it's to complete some cultural idea of acceptability. Or maybe the person living there designed it with an architect and it's exactly what they wanted. Maybe these are all right. Maybe these are all wrong. Regardless, I looked at this house for the first time and was no longer looking at a house.
