Roadside: May 5, 2026

I stepped down from the train platform at St. Denis to my waiting car, the old Citroën that is my main pretense in my otherwise shambling, overly casual existence, where it sat with only one car in a parking lot meant to hold thirty or forty cars. Remembering my morning intention to clean the windshield of the filmy springtime haze that the wipers couldn't take on, I went for the trunk, only to realize I'd left it unlocked all day while I was working, but nothing was missing, so I retrieved window cleaner and a cloth and swiftly cleaned up.

I waved to my fellow train commuter in the other car in the lot, puttered off, and headed through the little community of Relay, happily chuffing around the turns and curves until I was passing the small Catholic Community church there, festooned with the rainbow flags that differentiated itself from the less-inviting traditional churches, and on my left, in a broad grassy field by the small school, I saw a huge white dog reclining in the grass with no one else around.

As I approached, I noticed that the dog was reading a book.

It paused from that task, lowered the book, and looked at me. It was clear, in a moment, that it wasn't a dog, but rather a furry out enjoying the sunny late afternoon. I smiled at the white face of the dog, or maybe wolf or fox, and the furry raised a paw in greeting. I waved back, noting that the mask of its fursuit doesn't allow for much expression beyond what can be acted out in mime, but I nonetheless got the idea, from body language, that the occupant of that outfit was contented with their day, and I shared the feeling.

It always makes me laugh that the place the rotten opposition to modern humanity goes, whenever they're decrying those of us who fall outside of their narrow view of how we must be, and how we must act, and how we must look and perform our humanity, where they end up sputtering about piercings and purple hair and people dressed as wolves and cartoon bears and being vegan and driving electric cars or stupid bicycles and whatever else they can dredge up from their inner self-hatred and fear of standing out in a crowd, because the freaks and weirdos and the rest of us who don't feel so bound to their glum, uninviting lives have something they can't grasp—

We're happy. We enjoy life, and play with it like a game, like we're childlike and not childish, and we revel in possibility, rather than shuffle along in compliance. It occurs that I don't fully understand the appeal of dressing as a dog or a wolf or whatever animal was out there, lounging with a book in a field on a clement afternoon, but I do understand what it's like to step outside the boundaries and just relish in what we can do, and what we can think, and what we can explore.

I shift down to make the corner in my car that is, itself, a sort of costume, exchange a wave with a woman walking her dog, and head for home.

© 2026 Joe Belknap Wall