The answer, of course, is that it is.
But we are all articles left behind. A glove. A phone charger. A half-finished sentence. A promise we forgot to keep. taxi bill
It remembers the rain we drove through—the way the city blurred into watercolor lights. It remembers the silence between two strangers who shared a back seat for half an hour, the driver's sitar music bleeding softly from the front, and how you finally said, "I think I’m losing the ability to cry." The answer, of course, is that it is
The machine exhales a ribbon of paper—thin, thermal, unfeeling. $24.50. 11.3 miles. 28 minutes. The taxi bill lands in my palm like a verdict. A phone charger
The driver glances in the rearview. He has seen a thousand fares like us. Couples dissolving. Drunks confessing. New parents too tired to speak. Travelers heading to airports they've missed before. He knows that the final bill is never really about the trip. It's about what you were running from when you raised your hand on the curb.