An empty rural road beneath an unforgiving dark gray sky. A small man is hissing down the highway in his vehicle made for giants. He is alone on the road, alone in his thoughts and alone in his life. He hasn't seen another car for miles and he struggles to remain convinced of his forward motion. He takes the left lane and allows himself a higher speed than usual. Though presently middle aged, he thinks of the twilight of his youth, his 20s, and what was on his mind back then. Girls. Fun. And more seriously, looking years down the road, how he might someday go about eulogizing his parents. He always had that morbid edge, but he never felt it had darkened his life.

A recent cold spell and the wet weather were collaborating to leave rows of slush on the roadway. This early in the morning, it wasn't unusual to see chunks of dirty, frozen slush left behind by the occasional semi-truck. The man cursed this stretch of his hyper early commute and while staring at the road as it passed under the hood of his automobile he tried to think of something fun and interesting he could buy after work. Still staring, an odd shape caught his eye. It was clearly some of the icy debris felled off from the back wheels of a long passed semi-truck, but he couldn't get the image out of his mind. It looked like the forearm of a child with an outstretched index finger pointing right.

Still cruising in the left lane the man laughed aloud at his compulsion to move back into the right lane. Surely he was old enough and wise enough to not believe in magic. This was no sign, he told himself, just a chunk of dirty slush. And yet... Why not move back over to the right lane? Maybe it would save his life and he'd have a story to tell. The man thought of it as a challenge to a higher power in which he did not believe. In irony he thought, Show me how I've been saved! He laughed again, this time at the expense of all the mystics, so caught up in the worship of magic tricks. He thought again of that frozen arm and its frozen finger. The image in his mind was so clear, the sight, so powerful! The wizardry of his own mind and the magic of his existence came to his thoughts. He recoiled at the contradiction and the inconsistency of his thinking. Without another thought, he changed lanes.

The rear passenger side of his vehicle caught the front drivers side of what had been a long approaching semi-truck and spun the man's vehicle around so that, for just a tiny moment he was facing the oncoming truck. The man saw his life in the headlights, he felt the metal monster of his forward motion fall off the edge of the highway and he felt himself airborne inside this metal cage. Even the crashing into the ditch, and even the crunch of rolling metal rang silent.

After what felt like a moment, but was in fact a few minutes, the man was dragged out of the wreckage, strapped down onto a gurney and carted to the ambulance. As he was being loaded in, he saw the back of the truck he had clipped. The man wanted a message from God, or something. He heard the EMT say something about a miracle and just as the back door to the ambulance was closing he made out the only sticker on the back of the truck.

"Bad driving? Call 1-800-FUC-KYOU."

In a bloody, exhausted haze, the man thought about his life.

I joined a fun little writing group. The second or third week in, I ended up writing this little story spontaneously. Everything in it is true, but its a mish mash of different stories threaded together.

"Let's get dressed up. You come over around 8. I'll make pancakes. We'll talk about art with and A and Living with an I." That's what I wanted to say anyway. I guess that's the way it happened, just about.

She had better words for better thoughts but dammit if I didn't try my best. We sat awkward before awkward was cool, we spent silent time dreaming of the rambunctious dialog we could be having and once in a while we connected.

She followed me to my bedroom anyway.

Somethings are easy and some things are difficult but everything and I mean everything either happens or it doesn't.

I asked her what she was doing tomorrow. She said that wasn't as a clever a remark as I probably thought it was.

I asked her what she was doing in a week and and she said I'd either be there to see or I wouldn't.

I asked her to ask me something and she said, "Will the landlord care if I paint your walls?"

Two years later and I've barely spoken to her since. But the Beatles stroll across my wall in abstract deliverance and I think of her sometimes.

Walked to the library, dropped off my book.
Walked to the bank.
Walked to Sound Grounds, got some coffee.
Sat and read my book for an hour.

Finally picked my head up and looked around.

A couple over there playing Scrabble on a travel size board.
The old man next to me at the window bar downloading music.
The young guys playing cards a few tables over.
The four middle aged women performing some decent Celtic jig rock.

It all felt magical/normal.