The Surreal Life

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As soon as traffic starts to back up on the freeway, there is always someone who will decide to drive down the shoulder as a shortcut to the next exit.

The morning commute has slowed to a crawl. The freeway narrows to three lanes; we're moving, but slowly. I'm in the center lane, pacing the semi in front of me at a steady 20 miles an hour.

To my right, coming up the paved shoulder, is a small flock of medium-sized birds. Uniformly white, there's about a dozen of them, flying in a loose formation no more than eight feet above the pavement. Steadily, they pass the slowly moving cars, keeping to their straight path along the empty shoulder.

They got off at the next exit.

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