An episode when I should have been killed or seriously injured, but was not.

 

We are free to think we are free.

There is no free will. This thing happened; it could not not have happened; and now you have to waste your time reading it. Out of curiosity, friendship, or boredom. It makes no difference, you have no choice in the matter. This clickbait is inevitable.

I was driving down a long stretch of Interstate in Florida. I don't remember the year, but I must have still been married, and Amy and the kids were not with me. It was early in our marriage, because I was still learning the ins and outs of driving a car. Amy had taught me how to drive in Bottineau, North Dakota, so I could get a raise.

I was uncomfortable as a driver, not only because I was still new at it, but because the Florida landscape made me feel uncomfortable. The loblolly pines lining that section of Interstate looked like giant alien stalks ready to inundate the world with some kind of cancerous spore. The people I moved among and talked to seemed nothing but behind-the-scenes workers at a theme park -- when their shift was over I expected them to board a bus back home to Arkansas. The long stretch of Interstate made me feel like Tantalus just before he was assigned to his boulder. 

The rear right tire blew out while I was going about seventy. The car swerved crazily until I got it back under control. I took my foot off the gas pedal and slowly came to a stop, only halfway off the road. I didn't know if it was legal to park all the way off the Interstate. There were signs I'd seen, I thought, that said it was illegal to do so. So I was only halfway off the road. Cars began whizzing by, honking furiously at me. Narrowly missing me. Thank goodness it was the middle of the afternoon on a sunny day.

I knew how to change a flat tire. I'd done it before, in the safety of my own driveway. But something didn't seem right to me, as I began removing the tools and the spare tire. The cars and trucks were passing too close to me. People were screaming out their windows at me as they zoomed past. But there was somewhere important I had to go, someplace I needed to be; so I squatted down to take the lug nuts off the blown tire. I was fatalistic; when you blow a tire on an Interstate you take your life in your hands. There's no other choice.

Then an old truck pulled off the road behind me. A white man and a black man in bib overalls got out and came up to me.

"Can I hep yew?" asked the white man. 

By now I was sweating and convinced I was about to die, so the face I turned up to him was one of fear and agony.

He smiled down at me, his teeth stained brown.

"Don't be afraid, son. We ain't a gonna hurt you."

He pointed at the black man next to him.

"Charlie here is deaf -- he don't hear nothing and cain't hardly speak." he said reassuringly. 

"Yeah" I mumbled, getting up. "I could use some help."

So the white guy and the black guy told me to get behind the wheel while they pushed my car all the way off the road. Then they fixed my flat for me. And drove away. I thought of offering them money, but only had three dollars on me for my dinner that night. So I just shook their hands and told them thank you. They waved at me as they drove away.

This thing was destined to happen to me. If not then, then at some later time. If not there, then in some other place. You are reading this even though it turned out to be a waste of time. It only proves one thing: there is no free will.