The Trucker

I drive. The world rumbles. Everything is still dark. The clock says thirty-one minutes past noon. The sun didn't show up today.

My headlights paint the road with flashing reflective strips. Shadows of trees and telephone poles stream past on either side. This is my last drive for the month. I'm going home. It will be good to see my boy again.

The highway is two lanes. One for fast drivers in their fast cars. One for slow drivers, and truckers like me.

I shift in my seat and crack my neck. It's still dark. Has been since I left this morning. Sun never rose. That's never happened before.

I'm sweating, even though it's cold, and there is something going on in my chest, like my heart is doing somersaults. I make myself breathe, and my foot pushes a little on the gas. I hear the engine purr in response as the seat pushes into my back, moving me forward along with the six tons of steel that surround me.

I'm not a thoughtful man. I drive trucks. I sleep when I can. I eat. I do my job and watch the clock. But the sun not rising, well, it gets a man to thinking. The kid's turning six soon. Can't believe how fast time flies.

My eyes scan the gauges. Speed is fine. Heat is fine. Fuel should last until Van Horn. I glance at the clock. It hasn't budged. I swear mentally and cough, and shift in my seat again. My arms tense, pulling my body up toward the windshield as my hands adjust their grip on the wheel, and then I sag back into the seat. Still a few hundred miles to go.

A pair of brilliant white lights flare up in front of me, coming up over the hill in the dark. The sight sends electricity down from my scalp, through my spine and into my feet. I step on the brakes hard while the oncoming car blares its horn.

The brakes work, but they send the truck shifting and rocking from right to left. My gut clenches along with my arms as they try to control the massive death trap I'm driving. My tires hit the grooves in the side of the highway as I swerve, and a deafening buzz vibrates through the metal frame and into my ear drums.

I swear at the sound. The road thought I was falling asleep. Well, I wish I were. At least the current lack of sunlight would then seem reasonable.

Somehow, I avoid the head-on collision just in the nick of time. Thankfully this stretch of road has a paved shoulder. There's a small impact as the other driver clips my back corner with his back bumper, and I'm swerving back to the main road, incredibly, in one piece. The grooves growl at me again as I make it back to the lane.

Gasping, I wipe sweat from my forehead. My heart's drumming a steady beat now, no longer doing front flips like my kid on the trampoline.

I check the time. Thirty-two minutes past noon. It's been a whole minute.

I stare at the clock in disbelief. And then, for some reason, I laugh. It just bursts out of me, a deep laugh up from my belly. No sun today? Why not? Drunk driver nearly kills me? Just another day at the office. Time doesn't want to move? Well... that's the most normal thing about today.

Still chuckling, I relax into my seat and drive. About six hours left to Van Horn. And then I'm going to hug my son.