The Drive Home

       Randal sighed as he buckled his seat belt. He almost threw his head into the headrest of his car as he slammed on the gas pedal. His red crossover SUV sputtered out of the parking lot.

            He was free now!

            He had been at work much longer than he had planned to be. His boss had come in at 3 pm and dropped a brand-new project on his plate that he wanted to be done before Randal left, so right now, speed limit didn’t matter. Of course, he did have to brake harder than usual when the light just down the way turned yellow.

            Work was still too close. The quicker he could get away from the building, the faster he could forget his rage at his boss, who was probably on a beach sipping Mai Tai’s by now. 

            Randal tried to calm his nerves, so he focused on the road ahead - until a black corvette pulled up next to him. Randal couldn’t see through the tinted windows into the sports car, and he didn’t know what kind of car his boss drove, but he was sure the tiny horrible man was in there. 

            Randal imagined throwing his car in neutral and revving the engine. He wanted to challenge the driver. As if out of nowhere, a beautiful young lady, wearing daisy dukes, a white blouse, and a frilly white scarf, walked out between the cars. She untied her scarf and held it high above her head, waiting to drop it. 

            The light turned green. 

            The sleek sports car pulled away in a blur. It took off so fast that Randal couldn’t keep up. The woman disappeared back into his imagination while Randal’s little SUV puttered on down the road, in the trail of smoke the corvette left behind.

            He was alone with his desire to start his weekend again. His friends were already texting him, asking when he would be ready to go out. Last he heard, they had been planning on dancing tonight. He imagined meeting a woman at the club and asking her to dance. A smile started to sneak up on him, finally starting to defeat the anxiety staying late at work.

            He absent-mindedly approached the entry ramp for the highway. The SUV started to approach highway-speeds. As the car crested the ramp, bright red brake lights greeted him. 

            For the second time in just minutes, Randal slammed on his brake. 

            The distance was too short. The car was traveling too fast. 

            He was going to slam into the green sedan in front of him. He pushed his brakes as far down as they would go, hoping to stall any momentum he could. Otherwise, he and the other driver were toast. A metallic grinding sound emanated from his wheels. Randal tried to pivot his car, but it was too much too late.

            His car slammed into the back of the green sedan. The impact was more forceful than he would have thought possible, like a locomotive slamming into a carriage. 

            His car hit the back of the green sedan, pushing it off the road. His vehicle continued forward undamaged. 

            Randal shook his head, and the daydream shook out. 

            His car hadn’t taken any damage because he hadn’t hit anything. The car stopped with plenty of space between them.

            The river of red brake lights felt longer than the Mississippi. Traffic wasn’t moving. Randal slammed his head into the headrest again.  

            The map on his phone confirmed it would be a while to get home. He cursed himself for not checking traffic before he left, but Randal had been in such a hurry to leave that he hadn’t thought about it. 

            Traffic started to inch forward. He wasn’t flying down the highway yet either. The lane to his right seemed to be moving quicker than his current lane - which was going all of ten miles per hour. He knew that if he were to get home anytime that day, he needed to get through this traffic.

            Randal glanced at his side mirror and saw his opening. Of course, he was always nervous when trying to make lane changes in traffic. Whenever he attempted a shift like this in traffic, he always envisioned another car merging at the same time. The vehicles would collide. A battle for the right to the lane would commence, and the strongest car would win.

            But this time, nothing happened. Randal merged into the lane.  He kept his eyes on the mirror and in front of him at the same time, completing a perfect lane change in traffic successfully.  

            He double-checked his mirrors to make sure everyone behind him was okay, that no violations of traffic laws or etiquette had been broken.  As he did, he noticed a sleek, black sedan behind him change lanes as well. He tipped his hat to the driver of the car and smiled, thinking about how much faster he was going to get home.

            Until his lane came to a stop.

            Now the cars from the lane he had come from started passing him. Now they were moving faster than him. He narrowed his eyes and looked in his side mirror.  He needed to pick a spot that he could take to get in the moving traffic. There was one coming up, just behind the lifted black beat-up truck that was slightly swerving inside its lane. 

            Randal slammed his foot to the gas pedal.  The car picked up speed. Changing lanes in such a short space could be dangerous if you weren’t the expert driver like Randal thought he was. He successfully merged into the faster lane again, without any wrecks or damage caused. 

            Out of the corner of his eye, though, he saw the black car change lanes too. The black sedan was behind him by three cars. Something felt fishy. Was he being followed?

            His lane of traffic was still moving. He was only going ten miles per hour, but he was still moving. He needed to see if the car was genuinely following him. 

His fingers tightly gripped the steering wheel. He spotted the target in his mirror and found a slot he could slide enter in the other lane. His trap was set. 

His heart was racing. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would be following him, but it seemed like there was no other answer. Was it the work he did today? Was someone trying to get his work? It didn’t matter. He needed to make sure that someone wasn’t following him. 

He rocked in his seat, waiting for the spot in the other lane. The speed had picked up slightly, but they weren’t going to fast. It was a snails race.  Still, one person touching their brakes could create a ripple effect that could have catastrophic consequences. 

His spot came.  As much as he hated it, he moved lanes without using his blinker. A successful lane change completed, and Randal watched his mirrors. 

The car that had been following him sped past. Randal watched as the car drove by without slowing down or the driver even looking at him. 

It was such a letdown. Randal sighed and slumped in his seat. While the speed of traffic had finally picked up, he saw brake lights up ahead.  They wouldn’t be moving this quickly for long.

“Why aren’t we going?” He lamented to the radio. 

He sighed, ready to break out of his stupor. Life had been pretty dull lately. He would go to work, then home. Sometimes, he would go out with the three friends he had and their wives and girlfriends. He was always to the odd wheel, be it the third or fifth wheel. His friend’s wives had all tried to assure him that he was handsome and funny to be around, that he just needed to loosen up a little and get out and do more. Some told him that he needed to grow up and stop daydreaming so much. 

Still, he wanted something more. He wanted to go out and do something new. He wanted to travel the world. He wanted to go to the airport, pick a place, and just go. It was this moment that he realized that he was in a rut. 

Traffic came to a complete stop again. Randal twirled his thumbs around each other on the steering wheel. He thought about that airport, the one that was just down the next exit.  It would be easy to jump on a plane and be out of here for the weekend.  But he had already made plans, plus he didn’t have anything to take with him.

He heard the plane before he saw it. That was pretty typical on his way home since he passed by the airport on his drive. He looked up and saw the giant silver bird ferrying people from great faraway lands. 

But something felt different this time. 

The plane was lower than usual. Randal felt like he could read the words printed on the side of the aircraft, which he could never really do before.

Was the plane descending too quickly? He leaned forward for a better view. The aircraft was far off to his right, but it was coming in quick and low. If it continued on this track, it would probably hit the elevated part of the highway. 

With traffic stopped, he had nowhere to go. There was no escape. He would have to sit there and watch as this plane landed on the highway! 

The plane dropped lower and lower until it was only feet above the buildings it flew over. Randal began to brace for impact. His car was stopped less than a mile from where the aircraft would land, but he knew that he’d need to be ready for whatever.

He grasped his seatbelt tightly. If he had to, he would ditch his car and run out to help those that survived the crash landing. How would he do that? He had been inside an airplane enough to know the location of the exits, but he wasn’t sure he could do anything from the outside. 

He squeezed his eyes tight counting the seconds until-

The car behind him honked. 

When he opened his eyes, he saw the plane high above him.  It descended like a normal plane would. Another horn honked behind him as he looked ahead at the giant space between his car and the next. The line had moved while he had braced for the impact that never came. 

He took his foot off the brake and moved forward, chuckling to himself. His mind could get carried away sometimes.

He followed the plane as it descended towards the airport.  He wondered where the plane was coming from, and what type of adventures the passengers were coming back from.  

Until he felt a bump and heard the impact. 

He turned his attention to the road in front of him. All he could see was the back windshield and brake lights of the car that had been in front of him. It seems that his foot had lightly released the brake without him knowing, and he had crept forward, right into the bumper of the car in front of him. 

 He didn’t panic. Just like every day, he had this vision in his head.  His mind would create these events to spice up his life. He just smiled and looked at the image in his view.

The driver's side door opened, and a pair of long shapely legs turned out. A young woman with light brown hair stood tall out of her seat. She looked worried and frustrated but beautiful at the same time. Her white blouse flowed in the wind of what little traffic there was, while her short cut blue jeans gave her the appearance of a country angel. It looked like the same woman that had been ready to drop the flag for the drag race with the corvette. 

That’s how Randal knew that he was dreaming. This woman was the type of woman he always dreamed of. Randal watched her closely as she strode over to his. He shook his head, laughing at himself for dreaming up something so ridiculous as meeting the woman of his dreams in a meet-cute fender bender.

He waited for his daydream to end, as they always did. The woman came to a stop just outside his window, her hands on her hips waiting for him. He kept his eyes on the road ahead, waiting for the dream to end so that he could continue on his journey home.

Then she rapped on his window. 

It startled him. While everything had felt so real in his head with the airplane landing, or someone possibly following him, nothing had ever really broken through to real life.

“Hey buddy,” her voice called out. “Are you okay?” 

He turned to look at her, wondering how his mind was playing games on him now. 

Randal started to panic. He looked from her to the car in front of him. He noticed all the other vehicles beginning to move through traffic. This was real. 

“Oh no,” he said. He flustered with his seatbelt, trying to release the latch. He fumbled with the door handle too.  When he managed to get the door open, he was still latched into the seat. He managed to fall without actually falling. 

She giggled, which was much better than her being angry. 

“I’m so sorry, I’m not sure what was going through my head,” he said as he freed himself from his vehicle. He could feel the blood rushing to his cheeks in embarrassment. 

“Well, I’m not happy that my car was hit,” she said, leaning over to check the damage, “but I think we’ll both live. “

“Yeah, I’ve never been involved in a low-speed accident,” he said, scratching his head. He, too, leaned in to inspect the damage.  Since he had been inching forward, there wasn’t much to see.  But he did find himself close to her, and her perfume was intoxicating.  “I was just watching that plane, and I was imagining... Well, that’s not important.”

“I was thinking that it was flying pretty low,” she smiled. “I was thinking I was going to have to hop out and help save people.”

He couldn’t control the corners of his lips. They began to curl up at the corners in a way that they hadn’t done in a long time. It felt fresh.

“It doesn’t look like there’s any damage,” she said, nodding to the cars. “Your car looks worse than mine, so how about we don’t even call the police?”

He wasn’t sure if he should be concerned with the verbal jab, but she was right.  His car did have a small dent in the fender that hadn’t been there before. He was sure one of his buddies that liked cars would be able to get out. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I just want to get home. It’s been a long day at work.” 

“Same,” he said with a grin.  He didn’t want her to get away so quickly.  He put his hands in his pockets and rocked on the balls of his feet. “Look, I know you want to go home, but you’re being so nice about all of this, can I make it up to you somehow? Maybe take you out for a drink or something?” 

She smiled. “I can’t tonight.” She looked at her car and then back at him. “But maybe we should exchange information - in case you need to get in touch with me to make it up some other day?’ 

His smile couldn’t go any further. “That sounds like a dream.”