Arise, you prisoners of the screen, the digital serfs of a hollow age.

The room is a cross section of the neighborhood, a mix of blue-collar young adults and middle-aged men ready to unwind for Super Bowl weekend. And retired folks just enjoying a night out.

The toy car rattled across the fake green marble of the vinyl tiles, its wheels whispering over seams that led from the living room into the waiting dark.

The car is still, but the world is in motion. I sit in my parking lot pew, the sanctuary of a dashboard altar, windows all the way down, letting September air baptize me with a breeze that still carries the memory of summer but already hints at the sting of coming winter.