I really want to crash my car into his.
 

I want to just erase him from the world to make everyone happier. Give me a face full of glass, a shattered femur and missing teeth. I want my tire to meet his jawbone with a force that Newton never even imagined. I want the resulting river of gas to ignite so we both explode.
 

Why? Because I hate him. But I won’t. I can’t.
 

Five mornings a week I board Woodrow Wilson and he takes me to school. Woodrow, a 2008 silver Jeep, got his name because his license plate includes ‘WWI,’ during which Woodrow Wilson was president. I buckle up, I lower the windows (because I have no A/C) and I blast Wu-Tang Clan as I drive to school.
 

On these mornings I get annoyed to the point where I’m yelling out of my window. Who am I yelling at? I don’t really know, but I know what he drives: a silver Infiniti.
 

This Infiniti cuts everyone off. He goes 20 mph over the limit to where, I wonder? The red light down the road where we are all headed? Who does this guy think he is? Why can’t he just wake up earlier? I mean this guy is apparently always on the verge of being late to the National Jerk Convention.

That man, that Infiniti, is my Lex Luthor. He is why I will eventually be sent to the first round of the seventh circle of hell — the sublevel where those who are violent against their neighbors hang out. Boiling in the river of blood, with Attila the Hun and Alexander the Great, will be me.
 

Now, although I hate this guy with every fiber of my being, I’m not actually going to kill him. Because that’s murder. I’m also not going to take a different route. I refuse to abandon my fellow drivers. We are all soldiers against this nameless force, this constant speeding annoyance we can’t avoid.  I’ve convinced myself that the cars in the adjacent lanes need me. I’m the beacon of light that will guide them through a dark world of jerks who cut them off. Together, we need to grow strong and overcome such obstacles. The number of obstacles, not unlike the car, is infinite.
 

ALEX GONZALEZ, Hillsborough High