Drives

(This was a prototype, so to speak, of a new way of finding inspiration and honing my writing skills. Just so you know.) 

I thought at first he bribed me with the food. He would take me on long drives to the city and take me to exotic restaurants, foreign cafes. Sometimes, it was just cheap fast food, but usually whatever he could afford. I used to think that he bribed me with the food until one day I realized: it wasn’t these far-off places that excited him. He wanted to show me the drive, he wanted to share it with me. As soon as I realized this, but more importantly, as soon as he knew that I had realized it, he began taking me on just drives. We would pack up sack lunches and go to the country for a change. It was different from the city air: it was lighter, and more free. The sky was bigger, and on those rare occasions when we went out at night, we would stare up at the stars, and they would shine brighter, and fill up more of the sky. They would be more filling, somehow, than those small, distant planets we would see in the city at night. Sometimes we drove through the trees, and in the early spring, we watched the trees bloom. The leaves were at first like a green mist on the brown branches, but not even a week passed before they had grown. Now, when we drove through these backroads, it was almost like looking through a green cathedral, the branches and new leaves forming beautiful gothic arched naves. We would see everything for what it was: the stars, the trees, the birds, the sky, and the clouds. For us, it was enough.