Morning all and welcome to Thursday. I am dragging a little and thinking longingly of the freshly brewing coffee. Soon there will be a cup. For now, thee is the prompt. Timers at the ready and off we go…
I like the two in the car. Not sure what story I will tell but I suspect it is about the relationship between the two of them more than anything else.
Thursday, March 28th: The car slid across three lanes of traffic.
The car skid across three lanes of traffic. I saw it go. We all saw it go. It started on the outside lane and looked as though it was trying to merge with traffic, fast. It entered the highway already moving faster than everyone else and by some miracle managed to hit a pocket of empty road. Ahead there were cars, behind, there was just us. I knew somewhere behind us was a dense pocket of vehicles. Due to timing the lights just right we too had entered the highway n an empty pocket of road.
The car kept moving, gaining speed. It crossed all three lanes in front of us and then jumped the edge onto the grass median that separated the east and west bound stretches. It made it to the other side of the median and kept going. It crossed the other side of the highway, facing th wrong direction and narrowly missing other drivers. There were squeals of breaks and altered courses as other drivers tried not to get hit or hit anyone else as they avoided the run away.
Miraculously everyone kept going, the car somehow finding a path across the road until it slapped into the concrete retaining wall on the other side. It hit with a sickening smack and the crunch of metal. We were already past on our side, our momentum carrying us safely on and Lee looked out the back window. For the most part traffic continued, but several drivers stopped. In my rearview mirror I could see cell phones emerging and a few brave souls cautiously approaching the driver’s side.
“Woah,” Lee said. He settled back into the passenger’s seat as the road curved and took the wrecked car out of our sight. “hat was strange,’ he added.
I nodded in agreement. “At least it doesn’t look like anyone was injured, other than possibly the driver.”
“Do you think he was drunk?”
“No clue,” I said. There was no weaving or wobbling, the car drove in a straight, if diagonal line the entire way.
“Maybe he had a heart attack behind the wheel,” Lee said.
I didn’t really have much enthusiasm for speculation. I was just glad the car didn’t hit us.
“Could be,” I said. Lee didn’t notice my lack of enthusiasm.
“Maybe it was a form of suicide, you know, death by car.”
I frowned. “Wouldn’t he have just run off the bridge?” I pointed up as we passed under yet another bridge. They crossed the highway at more or less regular intervals and had for the last thirty or so miles at least. ‘Any of the bridges would have been more of a guaranteed death.”
“Maybe he was conflicted,” Lee said.
“Conflicted?”
“Yeah, or a gambler. Maybe he made a bet with him self about surviving.”
Ten til Midnight 