Plot Lines

After my truck was brought back from an early retirement in an Anchorage church parking lot, I headed on the road to Homer for another grand adventure. The plot in this sequel began with immediate action as relentless 90 mile-per-hour winds threatened to throw the truck into the rocky cliffs of Turnagain Arm. This was coupled with a rain which seemed to enjoy grabbing at my tires and blurring my vision. As I got into the mountains the wind died down... as did the last threads of daylight. The rain, on the other hand, only increased.

By the time I got to Sterling there were pools of water littering the road, each one trying to suck the truck into its grasp. On one four lane stretch of road I tried to move into the outer lane to pass a car. What looked like a small skim of water covering that lane was evidently a mini ocean because the truck was gracefully thrown into a sideways skid. This became a double pirouette across the yellow lines followed by a moon walk as I shot backwards toward the opposite side of the road. The whole routine ended with the truck perfectly parallel to the white line on the opposite curb just outside of the lane of traffic. Still facing toward home I started the truck again and drove off. This time I proceeded at a slower pace with no efforts at passing even the slowest of grandmothers.

By the time I got past Soldotna the heavy rains and pitch blackness was joined by a thick fog. It was at that moment that I realized I was living out a horror movie. It was the point in the movie when the power goes out, the lighting strikes and the paintings of ancestors start softly laughing at the inordinately small size of your genitalia. You know, the point were the cat you buried last week comes strolling into the den singing satanic show tunes? The point when any sane person would run screaming and never look back. Yep. And, like any good horror movie character... I stubbornly stayed my course.

At some indeterminable point between Soldotna and Ninilchik I found myself driving 30 miles-per-hour while sandwiched between two cars; all three of us drowning in fog. I was almost positive the person driving nearly on top of my rear bumper was the kid I used to make fun of at Christian camp who'd come back for his revenge. Either he gave up his vengeful pursuit or I had mistaken his identity because he eventually turned off. The comforting red lights ahead of me pulled off as well leaving me alone in the clouded blackness. Just me and my impending sense of doom.

Besides the little choreographed dance in Sterling, the highlight of the trip was outside of Anchor Point when the fog got so thick I had to slow to 15 miles-per-hour while I fixed my eyes on the snow bank to my right. That snow was the only indication that I was indeed still on the road and was not teetering on the edge of some hungry ditch . This little obsession with the snow bank continued for about 10 minutes until the lanes in the road became evident once again. I never realized how comforting those well worn tire tracks really were.

When I finally arrived in Homer I completely expected to be greeted by falling electrical lines and exploding cars. Apparently this film didn't have the budget for such pyrotechnics. Oh well, I made it home and into my cozy little room with my life still in tact, though my sanity was tattered to shreds.

I can't help but feel that I got off easy for what was otherwise a horror ridden plot line. There was no major disaster to round out the tension of the meandering story. It’s quite likely that I'll get up in the middle of the night for a groggy piss and stumble into a palette of knives my mother mistakenly left at the top of the steep stairs which lead to the concrete basement. Yeah, that'd make a good finale.

| January 3, 2005 10:34pm |  

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