When you drive a big rig truck the world respects you.
Some days you want to pick up and drive just to feel the world quiver in your presence.
Rev up that sweet engine on your 1996 Freightliner and take her out on a long stretch.
Maybe deliver some insects to a warehouse in Berkeley.
Or drop off hundreds of cases of Coronas to a liquor store in San Bernardino.
Sometimes it can be hard to be out on the road driving a big rig.
But little pleasures keep you going.
Catching a glimpse at women’s feet as they hang out of a window.
Saving up Big Mac wrappers to make a sculpture for your mom.
Shedding a tear when you listen to slow dancing type love songs.
You find yourself thinking about climbing into your charred banana yellow-colored truck so often you can taste the exhaust smoke.
This lasts only until the crushing reality of the world sets in.
You are a lizard.
You are a lizard that lives in a graveyard.
The graveyard is safe and warm and you can hide in the cracks of tombstones.
It would be impossible to operate a big rig because you are a lizard and have lizard hands.
How could anyone take you seriously when you are a lizard and maybe can’t operate a big rig?
Also, you are in space.
Where would you drive your big truck when you are a graveyard lizard in space?

Peri sometimes writes things down and shows them to people. This is one of those times. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley where she studied clinical social work and other smart sounding things. Peri lives in a purple apartment in San Francisco, CA and has become friends with a dog in her neighborhood named Champion.

Illustration by Jack Roberts