The Voltage of Freedom

I bought the van because I was told it would make me free. It made me a mechanic.

The first week I learned the sound the engine makes when it is about to be expensive. The second week I learned that every parking lot has a slope, and that a fridge on a slope is a fridge that stops being a fridge.

Freedom, it turns out, has a voltage.

I parked above a town I did not intend to visit and watched its lights come on below me like a slow confession. I had water for two days and a battery that would last the night if I did not use the heater. I used the heater.

The van teaches you how little room you need. Then it teaches you how much room you wanted.

I slept well, which I had not slept in a bed in weeks. I think the van had stopped being a vehicle and started being a position—a way of facing the world that did not require its permission.