Ullus Locus

Where am I? I could be anywhere. Anytown, USA.

Outside the window of my motel room is a parking lot, with a souvenir shop on the edge of it, and a fast food joint on the other side of a blacktop divider.

The traffic hums by on the freeway a few yards away. I've been driving for two days. Actually, I've driven seven days out of the last eight.

Life begins to take on the appearance of a continuum. There's a nervous, somewhat frantic and semi-continuous movement up and down the coast. Winter fogs alternate with summer sun, but the roar of the diesels and the bumpy, hypnotic rhythm of the ribbon of asphalt remain the same.

But one day this pointless and escapist movement will stop, and life will stick to a spot. And near that spot will be a parking lot with a souvenir stand or an espresso stand or a row of newspaper racks on the edge of it, and a fast food joint on the other side of a blacktop divider. There is never any escape from the present.

Illustration by the late, great Saul Steinberg, for many years a frequent cartoonist and cover designer for the New Yorker magazine. See more samples of his work here.