v34.3: Wrong Turn Wednesday

Good morning folks,

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Typically when I have a boring drive into work I tend to spice it up with some fictional events.  Well today I don't need to do that.

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For the most part, it was a fairly typical drive into the office this morning.  I spent an hour of my life in traffic listening to the radio with thoughts of writing my musing on my mind.  Sadly, most mornings, I'm usually on "auto pilot" when I drive into work and rarely remember much about the drive unless something out of the ordinary happens, like today.

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I would classify my driving as habitual.  I rarely drive unless I'm going to work or going to the grocery store.  Since I have the destination in my mind, I know all the turns to make and how to get to my destination without thinking too hard about it.  Sometimes when we go for a drive elsewhere, I end up taking wrong turns because habitually I'm used to turning right at intersection X when I should have turned left.  Well today, I was thinking about what to write in my musing today and there were a bunch of different thoughts floating through my head.  It was during one of these thoughts that I took a wrong turn on my way to work and it took me awhile to correct the mistake and get turned back around and heading in the right direction.

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I was in the downtown area of the city and making my way to the street where I park when I turned right a street early.  Anyone who has driven in Halifax will know the road infrastructure here is a nightmare on the good days and today it was worse.  Needless to say, a simple error like this will typically set you back.  I somehow ended up on the other side of the downtown core on the "wrong side of the tracks".  This is the part of the city where if you look at the wrong person, it could be the end of you.  I come to a 4-way stop and am just about to pull away when this man jumps out in front of me and puts both hands on the hood of my car.  He had blood running down the side of his face from some kind of head wound and he looked to be quite intoxicated.  My first thought was to step on it and get the hell out of there but there was something in this guy's eyes that seemed to ask for help.  I rolled down my window and yelled out asking if the guy was ok and if he needed any help.  Of course no sooner had the words left my lips when another man came out from one of the alley-ways holding a gun and had it pointed at the man.  I was freaking.  I began to hammer the horn and in the process nearly ran over the man in front of my car.

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The man just stood there, head turned, looking at the approaching gunman.  I had flashes of my family in my mind and how I may never get a chance to see them again.  Then I heard the guy with the gun yell out for the man to put his hands up and he was under arrest.  It was then that I noticed the gunman had a badge swinging on a chain around his neck and then all of a sudden 3 police cruisers came out of nowhere and had me and this other guy surrounded.  It was like a scene out of a movie.  The wounded man simply sighed and hung his head as if giving up and then all of a sudden he looked up and straight at me through the windshield.  He had that knowing look in his eye and a slight smile on his lips and within the blink of an eye he was gone; disappeared right in front of me.  If it hadn't been for the dirty bloody hand prints on the hood of my car, it would have been like the guy never existed at all.  The cop began to curse and came over to my car asking me if I was alright.  I could only nod, I was still trying to figure out what exactly happened and how I could write about this in my musing.

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After a brief interview with the police I was allowed to leave and continue my drive to work.  As I pulled into my parking spot the wounded man materialized beside me in the passenger seat.  I nearly drove my car into the concrete wall in surprise.  The man was smiling.  He thanked me for saving him and when I asked him what happened and how he had just disappeared, he simply looked down and smiled.  As he opened the door to get out of my car he looked at me again.  I got the feeling he wanted to tell me something but he just shook his head and got out.  As the door shut behind him he disappeared yet again and I was left sitting behind the wheel with the car running wondering what the heck just happened.

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Then I woke up. :)

Cheers,

Al