The Commute

Ellen McNare stretched her leg under the steering wheel, twisting her left ankle this way and that. Molten steel clouds draped over the city for the tenth day in a row, angry spitting slivers of rain smacked the windshield. Her mood was dancing on the edge. A forced cheerfulness had her singing with the radio, but she couldn’t settle on a satisfying station which led to spurts of rage. Rage that her car was ancient and didn’t play her iPod, rage that she didn’t have any decent cds in the car, rage that every radio station had commercials at the same time.

As she approached the intersection at Mack Hatcher and Franklin Road just south of Nashville, she decelerated with a low curse at the yellow light glaring at her. Sitting through the red she continued snapping buttons on the radio until giving up and leaving it on NPR, reasoning she could at least learn something. Green glowed on the wet windshield and she pushed the gas. But another vehicle shot in front of her from the crossing road, cutting her off in a swirl of brakes and curses. It was a maroon minivan, the back bumper was crumpled on one end, contorting the “Choose Life” bumper sticker to read “Choose Li”.

Punching the horn, a beam of white light shot from Ellen’s little Camry, hit the minivan, and disintegrated it. One second it was there, the next – vanished. A thrill of fear warred with excitement in her veins. But where did it go? Did she just kill that moron? She would have been ok with the driver running out of gas or getting a flat tire, but she didn’t actually want to kill anyone!

Or did she? Glancing around, no cars stopped, no one paid any attention, no one cared. It was like the minivan never really existed. Shrugging, she took a deep breath to settle her jumbled nerves, and drove on.

Across town, Joel Wisneskie jerked his maroon minivan over onto the trash-covered shoulder of I-65. What the hell? Frantic, he whipped his head around seeing the football stadium, the Nashville skyline just across the river, the interstate split leading to Kentucky. Rather than being in Franklin, three minutes from his office, he was suddenly north of Nashville in the gridlock of the morning commute heading towards town. A good 45 minutes from the office. Slamming his hands on the grimy steering wheel, he snatched up his phone to tell his boss he would be late. Again.

In Franklin, Ellen smiled as she noticed she had enough time to stop for a coffee before hitting the office. And the sun peeked out in a shaft of golden light.