The Culmination of a Half-Year of Non-Thought (Part 4)

It was a rather green Christmas where I was. What little snow had come melted. At best, maybe a week of cold and then it was gone in the wind. Literally. Lots of wind, hustling and bustling through the city, keening away. People complained about the wind until it stopped and the cold came back. Then they'd complain about the cold and the wind, hearing them, would swoop back in and gush about energetically. Either form of temperature was disturbing. The subs and pluses.

But I was going to my parents for Christmas, where there would be snow. Lots of it. All white, fluffy, adorable stuff. Throw it at people, laugh, eat a white orb in the face moving at significant velocity . . . okay, not so enjoyable, but you get the picture.

This of course involves an eight hour drive through a wonderful mountain pass. A pass that features blizzard conditions, blowing snow, black ice, compact snow, slippery sections and tailgaters with no sense. You can already see the horrible shenanigans taking place, like retarded ballerinas on ice. Just twirling, twirling into tomorrow. The future. And ruining your present. Of the literal, figurative and ideological sense.

Somewhere off in the middle of no where, between a town of little significance and a town of greater significance as a tourist destination for skiing, I found myself driving slow. Not as slow as I could have been traveling (or as slow as I wanted to be traveling to ensure personal safety). To wit, three vehicles trailed behind me, and while I was assuming a speed somewhere around the seventy kilometer per hour range, I began the hazardous attempt of braking in order to slow myself further.

This in itself was probably the thing that made my life a victim of happenstance moreso than the moment of the tires of my truck coming into contact with the slicker icy surface mere meters beyond the point of my braking. My truck began to slide, following the leftward contour of the road to extremes, the front end beginning to position itself for a head-on collision with the snow (and guard rail) on the opposite side of the road.

As it stands, I'm not sure if what I did was smart or stupid. Perhaps it lessened what could have been catastrophic damage to being merely cosmetic. I jacked the wheel as hard and fast to the right as I could while feathering the accelerator. This caused my truck to slew to the right, missing the opposite side of the road (and all it entailed) to instead rotate my truck one hundred and eighty degrees so I was now facing the direction I had been coming along.

Of course, the three hangers-on that had been following me passed me by. It being the eve of the few days before Christmas, their own familial traditions probably weighing heavily upon their minds, any for of Good Samaritan service would be a preclude to wastefulness of their time and proclivities.

My truck continued its slewing, skating on the surface to the point where the drivers side (occupied by myself) initiated contact with the snowbank. The truck rolled upward, the momentum carrying it. There was a brief moment as I looked to my left over the edge of the snowbank and . . . down. Down. An embankment of perhaps a good fifty feet, probably more. I was on the precipice, and in the back of my mind a small voice said, ironically, not again (a story for another time, perhaps).

However, the moment passed, and the angels reeled in their line pulling my truck back onto its four wheels. No smoke, no fumes, nothing but the purr of the engine. My head rotates to the right, and my sister is sitting stock still in her seat, eyes perhaps a little wider than necessary to perceive the world about her. At this point I placed my vehicle into four wheel drive (a trait I am most thankful for), and placed it into reverse. Three more cars passed, along with an ambulance.

A three point turn and turned-on hazard lights later, I find myself outside my truck inspecting the damage and thanking God for the skid plates under my truck (it's designed for off-roading, you see) that protected the undercarriage from damage. I drove the rest of the way to my parents house at a more subdued speed, but safely.

My truck is still running without fault to this day.