My Travelling Home

I like to imagine I own a truck which I drive in search of stories and adventures. Sometimes I let the truck take me places, as it has a compass hidden away somewhere in its recesses, whose needle points unfailingly in the direction of new adventures. The truck is my travelling home.

Since this is still my imagination being whimsical, why don't I tell you how I collect stories and memories? Cork-stoppered bottles are the only homes for stories, scents and memories outside of our heads. Dangling from my truck is one bottle of contagious laughs, two round-bottom flasks of tales from far off places, one perpetually rattling bottle of interesting conversations and some others of sounds, scents(Read about how to stash away scents here) and colours of skies that I always want to remember. A butterfly net is all you need to catch them.


At some point, I found that the truck started brimming with its own stories. I suspected that they were the ones that made the whole truck smell of ripe mangoes one day and damp earth on another- both scents I had not collected.

If you ever bump into a story wafting around in the truck, you would- depending on what story it was- feel a rush of adrenalin, a burst of wonder, an oozing feeling of peace, a whoosh of contentment. And if you close your eyes when this happens, the story would come to life in your head. It's a good thing the truck lazily drifts in whichever way it deems best when I dive into a story.

I don't know why there is hay in the back of the truck. I wondered about it when I first came to own the truck and even prodded and felt around it, but didn't get to the bottom of what it was doing there. I first thought it was the truck's way of trying to fit in with the other trucks, but quickly dispensed of this thought. The truck thrived in its eccentricity. So I just let the hay be and burrow under it sometimes to go to sleep.

I also discovered the truck has quite the repertoire of honks which it uses on unsuspecting strangers: A thunderous sneeze, a guffaw, a flushing toilet, a squeak, a gulp, a shriek that would make anyone jump a foot, a rumbling gurgle.

If you ever see my truck on the road dear Reader, do stick your thumb out. There is nothing more that my truck and I like than having company with whom to share our stories with.