New Jersey glide

From 2am Philadelphia into New Jersey I was in that smooth sleepless comfort that is bound to pick me up at least a few times on every Greyhound run. The bus had lost all friction, and so had I. I saw Independence Hall and Liberty Bell Hall slide by. There was only a mild hiss of air around the glass casing of the bus and the muffled bump along of irregular asphalt somewhere deep below us as we crossed the Delaware into Camden and Cherry Hill. I was every bit as lucid as New Jersey’s post industrial landscape, as pale corporate buildings and retro diners gleaming with an excess of chrome and deep red neon, as pre-owned auto lots and rows of toll booths marked with red ‘X’s and green arrows. How beautiful it was, so quiet and empty, and how beautifully soft and blank I felt bumping swiftly through it.