A Rush to Disaster

7:27 a.m.

Five minutes away from work, three minutes to get there on time. I can make it I thought. No problem. Just a little more gas and I'll have this engine purring like a kitten. Burning up, I reached for the controls, adjusting the level of heat from hot to cold, flicking another button to roll my window down a crack. I turned the music up a little louder, singing along as the scenery blurred before me.

7:28 a.m.

Dust clouds spitting up behind me, I let my foot off the gas and began to brake for the stop sign in front of me, noting as I did another truck quickly approaching from the left of the intersection. I was prepared to stop. And yet all of a sudden I wasn't, pulling hard to the right instead as my wheels spun out of control. Instinct guided my hands to turn the steering wheels away from the direction of the slide and the immediate response of the antilock brakes jerked me in my seat as my belt tightened around me.

All in the space of a few seconds, I could see how dangerously close I was to the intersection and the other driver who was probably praying I would stop in time as well.

7:29 a.m.

Rolling to a stop on the other side of the road, twisted at an odd angle to the direction I had been going in, I sat there quiet, hands gone white on the steering wheel, my face drained of color, simply glad to be in one piece. Black ice, I thought to myself. Fourteen years worth of driving experience, and I'd never come across such a patch before. This one had my name on it.

And though I could have sat there all day, trying to pull myself together from way too close a call, the car approaching from behind me was all the incentive I needed to right myself and continue on down the road, albeit at a much slower pace than before.