The year is 2026, and humanity has increased in knowledge so much so, that everything is easier, faster, and is done with precision. We barely have to think for ourselves these days. It seems as if everything is ran by what has been "wired" into the main frame of anything needed to navigate life as we know it. Right?
Thus, when I open the door to my car I fully expect, fully depend on, that car doing what I need it to do. I never second guess it. It's the norm...as it should be. Today's vehicles automatically know what is expected of them before any action by a human has been taken. I need not do anything, other than push the magic button to command it's attention to detail, as the motor beings its purr, the lights illuminate, and then...as I shift into gear, all four doors lock instantaneously. It's ready for me...for the destination I direct it to go.
But...what happens when the car decides IT wants to be in control? Including taking control of the brakes & the accelerator, as the pitch black atmosphere consumes us?
That's exactly what happened around 3 AM this morning.
Dennis was in the passenger seat, being the silent partner, as the dark sky surrounded us. Rarely having the need to call my attention to being an unintentional driver, he must have dozed off. It was early...
When everything went black this morning, he still sat in silence, as if all was as it should be. But all was not as it should be. We were driving in the dark, with no way to see what was in front, in back, nor what surrounded us. No other cars on the road at the time.
"Dennis! I can't see!" I said it multiple times with no response coming from my partner. It was when the sound of loud horns (ah...there they are) being laid upon, yet not until my car began eating dirt, did I hear the voice of my beloved. He had reached over, trying to find access to lights, when his voice split the silence. "Mary! You're going off the road!" I already knew that...
Since my brakes weren't working, yet not considering the very real possibility of hurting someone else, I turned the wheels to the left trying to get back upon the road. I must have been in shock. Why would anyone choose that path? Thinking about it now, I really don't know why I didn't just let the car do what it had set out to do. Kill us both. Still...I don't understand how I had control in that moment, but not later.
As I made it back upon the blacktop, the lights suddenly came on. I had swerved into a one lane intersection, when the car stopped all by itself (no control of the accelerator, nor the brakes, remember), and we were waiting for what would happen next. It didn't take long for the car to start moving again. This time, slowly inching its way backward as the steering took ALL control out of my hands.
The car was backing up around the pickup truck sitting just to my left that was in a lane separated from ours by a grassy median. I was beginning to wonder where in the world we were. I had never seen a roadway so complex.
The sun had not risen just yet, so we were still clueless as to most of our surroundings. Even with lights now burning through the blackness, our location was not known. The car continued to slowly make its way around the back of the truck and continued across to what looked to be a gas station parking lot. I kept trying to stop the dang metal (well...mostly fiberglass), demon that was holding us captive...but to no avail.
It was when the car began to pin a woman against a wall of the building, that I woke...still sitting in my office chair, lamp light on, and eyes covered with a dark cloth. What a relief!
As always, here you will find me...in Mary's World.
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