Picture a wide road with the traffic sorted by speed. Out at one edge is the lane nobody sits in for long: cars come into it fast, sweep past everything else, and drop back out. It is the quickest way through and also the least forgiving place to be, because a car that stops there stops in front of everything moving. Both meanings of fast lane are that same lane. One is the strip of tarmac itself; the other hands the picture to a person and describes a life lived at that speed, with the same shine and the same risk.
可以想成一條大馬路，車子照速度分成好幾道。最外面那一條，沒有人會一直待著：車子切進去、一路超過旁邊所有車、然後再切出來。它是最快的路線，也是最不容錯的位置——在那裡停下來，等於擋在所有還在跑的車前面。fast lane 的兩個意思用的都是這條車道。一個講的是柏油路上那條道；另一個把這個畫面交給一個人，用來形容他的日子開得多快，連帶著同樣的亮眼和同樣的風險。