I'm not a writer. At least, not by profession.
Like all people who are writers but not by profession, I have a "day job". And I have been fortunate enough, that I like my day job and I find it interesting as well. After all, I'm a person who gets bored easily.
This job involves some travelling, nothing extreme like trips to the other side of the world, maybe just to the other side of a small geographic region. But, trips nonetheless. And either by car or train, these travelling intervals are a great source of views into previously unseen scenery - both during the actual travel and after the arrival at the destination. Being a curious observer as I am, my visual tanks fill with blurry images of green fields and peaceful villages, quiet rivers and smelly trucks, stone buildings and warning traffic signs. And, of course, many different shades of asphalt.
Driving on M25, on the clockwise direction - just to please the extremely curious of you - the asphalt changes under your car a few times. And though by no means I consider myself an M25 driving expert, since my ways rarely bring me to this massive circle of cars, I can tell you that there are a few sections where the way is more noisy and looks like it is temporary. Even the colour of this section is almost like yellow, a random patch that covers the hole below. And it looks like it's cracked.
Driving on the lane where the "crack" was, I couldn't help but imagining scenes from countless disaster movies, where the road opens and the cars fall into the darkness, never to be seen again. In my imagination, I would hear a loud sound from the depths of the earth, loud enough to be noticed over Judas Priest from the car's speakers. Then I would see the road open, slowly enough at first as to warn you, and I would have to quickly choose to which side I should turn before the left side and right side wheels have too much of a gap to overcome.
If you read this, it means that didn't happen. No new disaster movie happened on M25 the other day. But the "crack" was there, and kept going under my car for a few miles. But, keeping an eye on this failure of uniformity on the motorway for signs of danger, I noticed signs of some local flora. Nature utilized this tiny gap of artificiality to do what it always appears to be doing - claiming any potential space for its advancement.
I couldn't help but smile in the thought that these shy plants that sought the rays of the sun through slabs of asphalt and concrete, were responsible for the fragmentation of human infrastructure efforts.
Driving past the same place the day after, I realized that the cracks are not actual "cracks" but the neighboring edges of parallel slabs. But the remarkable fact remains - Nature takes advantage of every little opportunity to anchor itself and try and survive and make the most of the resources around. And it may not make an impact in impressive ways very often, but it is ever present and very persistent...