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.:. Los Alamos Rush Hour How sunny I was, dreaming of rainbow trout as I drove west at dawn. Ahead, across the valley, beyond the Rio Grande running full and muddy, red banks green with cottonwoods and willows, beyond White Rock and Los Alamos, beyond the Valle Grande caldera, high in the Jemez Mountains among evergreens and pale budding aspen, frozen snow banks softened, glowing in the early light like embers. Dreaming, I could see the first coal of ice break loose, sliding a few feet down the mountain, a creek beginning its daily rising, falling the miles downstream to me. Fast as I could I was on my way to the beyondSan Antonio Creek or winding Rio de las Vacas or wherever the fish sang to me like angels in their silver robes. Soon I would stand in the dazzling water with them, my fluvial soul full, singing back. First, though, there was that unexpected traffic, cars before me and behind and more appearing from nowhere, from Tesuque and Pojoque and who knew why they filled the highway so early. It was when I passed them and saw pure science in the eyes of the drivers 24 I knew. Beyond their cold straightforward gaze I could see formulas scratched on blackboards in secure Tech Areas, breakthroughs no one thought through, solutions which would not come and nagged their reasonable sleep. And I could see their houses, children, lives left behind early each morning for their work, abstract and deadly. When I slowed, they slowed, honked, passed me, faces white, furious I would not go on. Stupid drivers. Stupid commute through the beauty of the desert, stupid bridge across the river and road up the arroyo to Los Alamos. Caught fast in its traffic, unwilling but increasing its number by one, I could not dream into the distance where angels in the Jemez sang. I could not rush past those rushing there, little city on its five mesas, icy hand above us all. It would not thaw, would not let go its awful grip. 25 ...

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