Chris Dankovich recalls a surreal ride in a prison transport van — his first time out of prison in fifteen years.

The light turns green, the engine revs. My pure joy from looking out the window at the cars, trees, people, and things turns to shock. My stomach has wings, my heart skips a beat, and my instincts tell me I’m about to die as we accelerate all the way to 25 mph.

I haven’t been in an automobile in approximately 15 years. I haven’t left the perimeter of Thumb Correctional Facility since I was 16 years old. Now in my thirties, I try to brace myself, but the chains holding my hands to my waist won’t let me.

I close my eyes and breathe. The van smells like mildew and Doritos. I open my eyes again, and the officer in the front passenger seat, separated like in a taxi by plexiglass, is looking at me, laughing. “Make you jump a bit there, Dank?”

He asks if I’m good with the radio station, and I let him know I am. But I’m not paying attention to it. Reality exists right before my eyes! It’s like I spent most of my teens and my entire twenties in a cave, and now I’m briefly led into real life, albeit in chains.

What do you do every day that you take for granted? Do you know what the woods look like when you haven’t seen more than five trees for over half of your life?

People are staring at their phones. Nobody did that when I came to prison, before smartphones existed. I have my first direct glimpse of real society in seemingly forever, and in the first 15 minutes I see a guy walk into a street sign because he won’t take his eyes off his phone.

I can’t look away from the architecture we pass, and it’s not even fancy. The people walking, talking. The cars driving.

The officers pull into a gas station. The smell of gasoline after so long smells lovely, fruity, and mean. A pretty woman walks by. I try not to stare, but I do look at her. She smiles at me and waves to me. My stomach has wings, my heart skips a beat, though this time my instincts tell me I’m alive.

With nearly every group of people I’ve been around for decades gathering with either ill intent or no intent, I now see and feel the energy of human beings moving with purpose at the businesses we pass. The mothers with their kids in their car in the parking lot at McDonald’s, the people in line at the auto parts store.

It’s beautiful.

I’m in awe at seeing mass movement that’s constructive and with intention again in person. How often do people have deep spiritual moments watching people in fast food lines and rote capitalism in action from a moving car?

How do people not do so every day? How did I not see that beauty in every moment when I was a free person?

Enjoy this story? Check out Future Dreams in Prison