Slice Of Life: A Daily Story

Day Three

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Driven

Finally, the road stretched before her. Tunes played on the radio and she sang along merrily. She loved driving, almost more than anything else that she did. There was just something about being on the road, hands gripping the steering wheel, foot on the pedal, and of course the tunes playing on the radio. The hum of the tires beneath her during the silence between songs was somewhat soothing, rhythmic and somehow comforting.

The traffic moved steadily, she set her cruise control – don’t want to risk a ticket, now do we?  The two lanes opened up to three as she approached the incline, the third lane allowing over the roads to pass each other. She gripped the wheel tighter, looking up at the driver of the fuel tanker as she passed him by. She was always overly cautious when passing the might trucks, especially since her life was almost lost due to a near collision with one as a teenager.

It was a small highway, four lanes that cut through the desert straight as an arrow. She was inexperienced behind the wheel, just received her license in fact. The drive from the DMV toward home took her onto the highway at speeds she was just learning to manage; seventy was fast even for experienced drivers in the mid ‘70’s. She came upon the semi-truck driver quickly, too quickly. She signaled and swung into the passing lane much too sharply, but she maintained control of the car. Looking into her rearview mirror, she saw the car approaching so she swung back into the right hand lane, too soon. Too close to cutting off the giant semi-truck, who laid on the horn and quickly applied the brakes. She sped up, seventy-five, eighty…her heart beating too quickly in her chest, she didn’t realize she had been holding her breath until she began climbing the mountain and headed through the pass. She missed her turn to home.

But that was now thirty odd years and about half a million miles ago. Now she was quite an accomplished driver. She realized that her thoughts had been wandering and the third lane was now merging into two, into her own. In her reminiscent mind travel she had not noticed the large truck that had been forced to merge into her lane, flashers blinking brightly to warn of his slow forty-five mile per hour speed, far slower than her own sixty-five mile per hour speed. She slammed into the back left corner of the merging trailer, throwing her left where she bounced off the right rear quarter of a passing van. The steering wheel was ripped from her grip as the wheels tried to grip some road width as the car spiraled first on the interstate and then off and down the edge of parkway. She lost count of the number of times the car flipped as she rolled down the mountain towards the valley below her. She once caught a glimpse of the road above her, the semi-truck trailer hanging precariously over the edge, the guard rail damaged, dented, and totally gone where her own car had gone through it. She could almost make out the look of horror on the faces of those who had stopped their cars and watch her tumble down the side of the mountain.

At last the car stopped rolling and slid to a stop, the driver’s door flat upon the ground, the steering wheel pinning her thighs to the seat. She reached up to grip it and listened to the spinning of the wheels of the tires.  There was just something about being on the road, hands gripping the steering wheel, the hum of the tires beneath her was somewhat soothing, rhythmic and somehow comforting.