Everyday I watch the cars go by. I watch the teenagers dance to their music, I watch as the businessmen talk on their phones, and I watch as the mothers look back at their children. All of these things catch my eye while the day slowly drifts on. As the travellers pass, I wonder where they are going and where they’ve come from. I always question how they’ve come upon this moment. What brought them to this exact second of their life? As certain cars approach, I flash my red lights and warn them to stop. That’s when I get the best look at them.
The people passing by are always different. Each unique, yet similar. Between their actions, words, and expressions, everyone is so diverse. My favorite passers are the ones who are not local. The ones who have traveled long and far only to be stopped at my lights. They always look around and see things to be much better than they actually are. Their thoughts are masked by the new experiences they are having, and everything just looks polished to them. On the contrary, the locals are much different. They are used to seeing things a certain way and they let their opinions mask what’s really there. If a local person sees a skate park, they are not going to see it as a fun place to stop and get some exercise; they are going to view it as the spot where teenagers go to make bad decisions. This is a truth no matter what. People look at things through their eyes of judgement.
My days are full of wonder. I constantly wonder about people and their mindsets; I wonder often about their outlook on life. The other day I saw a kid surfing on top of a moving vehicle. What was that kid thinking? He could have very easily died, but he had an expression of pure joy. Almost as if the thrill of the ride was greater than the danger he faced. I see things like this all the time. People who live for the little adventures they can find in their life. Sometimes they get pulled over and face punishment, but most times they get away with their deeds and continue with a smile on their face.
The surfing kid is a frequent flier, and I consider the frequent fliers to be my friends. I know them all too well. For example, the surfing kid often makes mistakes. He likes to break the rules, and he doesn’t like it when people tell him what to do. He overestimates his ability to do dangerous things, and he always acts depressed until some sort of adventure is thrown his way. 
The more I see of a specific person, the more fondly I grow of them. I observe them and their different emotions. I pick up many things from people that pass me by, but I still don’t quite understand how humans think. I don’t know what they consider normal, why they perceive things the way they do, or how they think the world should be.  I observe their manners, often witness their crimes, and I take note to the anger they get after taking the wheel.
Most of the time people are rushed. They are constantly moving in fast motion. No one stops to look around. For example, earlier today I saw a rather frantic looking man run a red light. If he had done that at another time, he could have collided with another vehicle and lost his life. All just so he could make it to work on time. I wonder why this is… why do they care so much about things of such little importance?
Fortunately, I live a slow life. I have time to acknowledge everyone and everything. I have begun to understand the things I see. The human world is seemingly complex. It is a hard thing to understand or wrap your head around. Although the more consideration I put into it, I realized it is not nearly as complex as it seems. The complexity of their world is merely an illusion. Their everyday life is just a series of repetition that keeps repeating until their deaths. They succumb to their emotions and struggle to overcome the pressure they invent all on their own. Their problems are invented by themselves and the lack of appreciation they have for each other. In more ways than one their quality of life could be impacted dramatically if they stopped caring so much about what other people think of them. Often, I see someone driving along at a slower pace. Usually they look peaceful and calm, but as soon as they notice that others are trying to pass them, they speed up hoping that they haven’t caused any anger from the other person. In reality, they were enjoying themselves so why did they let someone else ruin that? These things happen often and remind me how lucky I am to not have to constantly worry about the viewpoints of people around me.
Their world is just a pointless blur. Ultimately, they live depressing lives and they never stray away from what they know. What they don’t know, is that their lives are just a series of red and green lights. They do the same thing every day, and even though they always have a warning before a red light, they still slam on their breaks every time.
Everyone lives by these “standards.” All except one couple. They pass by frequently, and I constantly notice how different they are. I see them every morning and afternoon, around the same time. There is two of them, and they were so different yet so alike. The girl has long brown hair that falls just above her waist. Her face is quite plain, but beautiful in a way different than most. She is skinny and well dressed, but not the kind of girl all the boys chase after. Her beauty is subtle, but demands to go noticed.
The boy has curly blonde hair and is of average height. He dresses in a very strange way compared to others his age; it’s almost as if he is from a different time. He looks as if he is always blushing, and as if he is always thinking of something hilarious. He isn’t scrawny, but it’s obvious he has spent very little time working out. The two of them together just seem to fit perfectly.
They both see things differently than those surrounding them. The way they look at each other is unworldly. Their eyes are constantly full of wonder and something else that I can’t quite describe. Something about them is just so pure and real. When they drive by they are always smiling. Sometimes they listen to music, and you can hear a combination of their off-pitch voices through the windows of their car. They always hold hands, and their laughs are contagious. They are images of beauty and bliss.
I don’t understand them. I don’t understand why they are so entirely engrossed in each other, but something about it is extremely beautiful. When other cars pass, they think nothing of these two. They are too blinded by their own lives and struggles, so they don’t realize the people passing them by. It’s wondrous yet sad that this form of attraction isn’t acknowledged or honored in the eyes of the people.
As the days get colder and the seasons start changing, I notice more and more changes in their relationship. Today things were different. I saw the boy approaching my lights, but as he got closer I realized he wasn’t with the girl anymore. There was someone new sitting alongside him. The girl was walking. I immediately wanted to warn her. “Turn around. Stop. Don’t look.” I was wishing I could yell to her, but sadly she approached my sign and witnessed all that was happening at the stoplight. I flashed my green lights and let the boy go, but she had seen all that she needed to see. Just the few moments it took her to realize there was someone new, I felt like I had watched an eternity of life pass by.
The girl stopped, right there beside me. While she leaned against me, I could feel her shoulders trembling and I could see little raindrops fall to the ground. I knew that the pain she felt would be something I would never understand, but suddenly I felt pain for her. This couple never knew me personally, but I felt I had known them all my life. I felt as though it was me that was being betrayed and that it was me that had lost all hope. The girl turned around and left. Wherever she was always going, she didn’t make it today.
As the day went on, I kept considering all of the previous events that might have taken place leading up to this. Suddenly, I became more and more curious as to why I hadn’t sensed any problems before. I didn’t understand how this could be possible. One day they were fine, and the next day something was terribly wrong. Their relationship had gone from green to red, in the blink of the eye, and I was left to wonder where the yellow had gone.
My entire life, there had always been some sort of middle ground. As much as I wished that people could just go or stop, I always knew that there would be some sort of warning coming my way. There was always a yellow light. For instance, one evening there was a teenage girl driving my way. I flashed a yellow light; warning her to slow down. She kept going and thought she could “make it” before the light turned red. She was right, but the light on the other side had already turned green. A car came from the side, and hit her. Neither of the cars were at fault, but someone had to be blamed for the situation. It was a yellow light, and the rules were not clear for the forgotten warning. If she would have acknowledged the warning when it was presented to her, the situation could have been avoided. I guess sometimes it’s easy to take the warnings in life for granted.
As several weeks went by, the couple still weren’t back together. They had faced the inevitable; change. Change was bound to happen, but feared by everyone. As the two reached a bump in the road, I had to stay confident in what had comforted me my entire life. After a red light, there was always a green. It seemed strange for this process to span such a large period of time, but I was nowhere near giving up hope.
Every morning I still await their arrival. I hope that something has changed and they will suddenly be back together again. When I see them apart, it’s as if I fall apart. I want nothing more than to see what I had seen before. I wanted to continue exploring the depths of their admiration for each other, and I wanted more than anything else to hear their off pitch voices combine harmoniously to the song on the radio.
My wishes were not anywhere near being granted, and I was starting to lose faith in my theory. I had been awaiting a moment that I had no control over. I was letting my happiness be determined by them, and I was even falling behind on my duties of managing the roads. I had invested my life into proving my theory, and I had to face the fact that I might be wrong. I thought I had everything figured out, but in reality I didn’t even know where to begin.
I continued hunting for signs leading up to the split. I thought that if I could find some sort of sign that things weren’t going well, I could explain why they were left without each other. The harder I looked, the more I realized that there was no sign. That this relationship had ended with no yellow lights, but with a slam on the breaks.
It was starting to become apparent that the two were over for good. I was wrong. Life is much more than I had thought. Not being able to control how you feel about someone is a curse cast onto humanity. It is torturous, and the two of them prove, that there is much more to life than a simple “stop and go.” The complexity of human life is more than anyone will ever know. Everything has a deeper meaning beneath the surface, and nothing is as it seems from the outside. The world of humans is a constant whirl of change and utter confusion.