Redhead by the Side of the Road

“Does he ever stop to consider his life? The meaning of it, the point? Does it trouble him to think that he will probably spend the next thirty or forty years this way? Nobody knows. And it’s almost certain nobody’s ever asked him.”

This quote summarizes the isolation Micah has created within his own life. The questions refer to Micah’s repetitive and somewhat aloof lifestyle and hint at Micah’s unwillingness to understand the benefit of change. The distanced narration shows how Micah remains separated from those around him.

“When Micah was behind the wheel he liked to pretend he was being evaluated by an all-seeing surveillance system. Traffic God, he called it. Traffic God was operated by a fleet of men in shirtsleeves and green visors who frequently commented to one another on the perfection of Micah’s driving.”

Traffic God is a manifestation of Micah’s perfectionism. Micah has a very strict personal routine as well as a housekeeping system, both of which he maintains as perfectly as he can. His particular preferences come out in his driving as well, and to make it more bearable, he has come up with Traffic God, which serves to justify the extra time and attention Micah dedicates to his driving.

“He and Cass had been together for three years or so, and they had reached the stage where things had more or less solidified: compromises arrived at, incompatibilities adjusted to, minor quirks overlooked. They had it down to a system, you could say.”

This quote shows how Micah views his relationships at the beginning of the story. He sees the compromises and adjustments people make in a relationship through a systematic gaze, believing that things have settled and no more unexpected issues can arise.