Random Waves of Insight

For those of you who haven't read my previous Don't Get Hit By A Truck post, suffice it to say that I am not a fan of giving just anybody the keys to a machine that could easily kill someone. That being said, allow me to begin Part Two.

Yesterday, two days before Halloween, I accidentally broke a mirror. No big deal, since I'm not really superstitious in that respect. Seven years' bad luck? Um, no thanks. I like to focus on how superstition can help, and pretend that if I don't believe in it, it has no power. So I'm good for the next 7 years. I'm just great.

Or so I thought...

Today, ONE day before Halloween, at rush hour, I went out to the street to get the mail. I live in a quiet area of a suburb that doesn't usually see too much traffic. And even when we do, the traffic isn't too severe. But today there was an anomaly.

As I stood a couple of feet away from the curb, retrieving the mail, I heard a powerful vehicle turn the corner nearby. I could see peripherally that it was in its own lane, on the other side of the street, so I would be fine. No collision. But then it did something unexpected. When it was still a short distance away, it began to accelerate. The road ends shortly after where we were, and drivers must turn left or right, so it's not like the truck could have been going for any kind of speed record. But the driver must have been in some hurry because he (or she?) just kept going faster and faster. I knew I was in the clear, since the truck wasn't aimed at me, but I realized that the speed it reached was lethal. If it had somehow veered off-course and hit me, I'd either be en route to a hospital right now, or dead.

So...my first thoughts after it left were questions. Why did it speed up? Did the driver know me, or think he/she knew me? Were they scared of me, or trying to scare me? Were they in a hurry? Did they want to catch up to the next car, because of that whole warped sense of, "I could go faster if only you weren't in my way, Next Car, don't you see, that's why I'm right on your bumper? I'm better than youuuu!!"

And then I thought of a movie I saw once, in which 3 separate tales of fear were woven in a tapestry of darkness. The one that struck me the most starred Lance Henriksen as a priest who had given up the cloth. As punishment, he was subsequently chased by none other than a Black Pickup Truck, with a crucifix hanging upside down from the rear-view mirror. Just that cross part alone had freaked me out, but in the movie, the truck was able to burrow underground and resurface without a scratch.

Of course, it couldn't have been the same truck for me today. But the memory of that short story made me think back to yesterday when I -- broke that mirror!

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