A flash of red amidst the grey

My god, it’s cold. Cold like I’ve never experienced before. Every breath freezes right in front of my eyes and a million invisible pins assault my hands if I take them out of my pockets for less than a minute. My ears used to feel as if they’ll freeze solid, drop off and shatter into fragments but not anymore. Neither does my nose, although that’s probably because my entire face has become numb by now. I keep walking. On the side of a road 9,000 miles away from home.

This is my first time out of my apartment completely on my own. I found the way to a new friend’s place without much trouble, now I have to find my way back - which isn't much of a challenge. So to make it interesting, I decide to find an alternate route. But the snide little voice inside my head says “Interesting? Yeah, right. You're just too scared to walk back under the bridge because it's dark now”. Normally I’d go “Oh yeah?” and do a 180 degree and proceed to walk back under the bridge. But it’s different tonight. I realize that walking under the bridge will be easy even in the dark because I have some sense of familiarity, I’ve been there before. Finding a new path altogether is harder. Especially when it’s your first time out completely on your own in a town 9,000 miles away from home.

But do you know what? I’m not worried about the fact that I don’t remember my apartment number or that I might be unable to recognize it. I know there’s not a chance in Hell that I’ll miss it. Because there’s a magnificent red Ford Mustang parked right in front of my apartment.

I can hear laughter from your side of the computer screen. “You idiot!! The Mustang isn’t a landmark, it's just a car. What if it’s gone?” I don’t think it’ll be gone. I know it will be there. 9,000 miles away from home, the Mustang is my Lighthouse. So I keep walking.

As I expected, it’s not easy to find a new path. It is not easy to leave behind everything you already know and stare into a completely uncertain future. It takes a lot of courage to take the leap of faith into the unknown and not everyone has enough perseverance to even consider something like this. They’d rather go under the bridge again.

And maybe they do have a point, because it is getting colder and I don’t seem to be making headway. My back hurts from all the shivering and my teeth are chattering. I seriously begin to question my decision. What would it have mattered if I had gone under the bridge again? I would have emerged directly behind my apartment and I would have been inside by now - warm and comfortable. I wouldn’t have been stuck in the savage cold thinking about pompous words like perseverance and trying very hard not to think about words like frostbite. And then I see it. A flash of red. I walk faster. I can make out the honeycomb grill and headlight combination that perfectly emulate the Gregory Peck scowl. My eyes follow the simplistic lines of the bonnet, the raked windscreen and the arching roofline. There’s no mistaking it for anything else. It is the red Ford Mustang - I'm home. And at that instant I have an epiphany.

I realize it didn't have to be a Mustang, it could have been a Mini Cooper or a Mazda MX-5, for instance. None of these cars are particularly fast or anything and while they’re no Ferraris or Lamborghinis, there is something special about them - an unmistakable sense of character that stirs your heart, if you have one. Why? I won’t get into the details but all of these cars were conceived by men who had the vision and passion to create something special, something out of the ordinary. To quote Jeremy Clarkson, these cars were created by men who wanted to make great cars as opposed to just making money. That’s why a red Ford Mustang or a silver Mini Cooper stands out in any parking lot or traffic jam amidst scores of ordinary grey SUV’s, brown sedans and white pickup trucks.

And I realize that is exactly why I came 9,000 miles from home. Thirteen years ago, I saw in an encyclopedia the picture of an aerospace engineer tinkering with a guided missile and decided that's what I would be when I grew up. Since then, I read and reread every bit of paper I could find with the word “aircraft” or “space” on it, wondering why everyone in the world wasn't an aerospace engineer, for no other job could be more awesome. Pretty much the same way I sometimes wonder “How can millions of people be driving dreary Toyota Corollas when they can be driving Mini Coopers?”

Being a firm follower of this religion (championed by Dr. House) called "Cynicism", I guess most people don’t care. To a lot of people, a car is just a way of getting around - pretty much the same way a job is just a way of making money. They don't think about whether or not they love a job, they'll suffer whatever job that pays off the biggest fraction of their bills. Their identity and their whole life is dictated by market demand and supply. I loathe this mercenary attitude in people more than anything.

This is why they will never amount to anything more than insignificant and identical lumps of grey and brown, like all the non-existent cars in the parking lot in front of my apartment, which will never be remembered as anything more than just a bunch of cars. None of them can be like the Mustang. None of them can be a Lighthouse.

I don’t want to be like them. I want to have a job which puts a smile on my face when the alarm goes off at 6.30 AM on Monday mornings. I want a job that will make a ten-year old boy go wide-eyed and awestruck. I know for sure that such a job would make my mother proud and help me give her a better life. And that, is why I have temporarily left behind everything I know and come 9,000 miles away from home.