Crossing the Tracks

The day that had eluded me for so long has finally come. My usual routine of waking before the sun and preparing myself for work brought no special occurrence. I have been getting up early for the last 12 years as my work dictated the necessity. I have never needed an extra moment in the morning and after going to the bathroom to do my necessaries and brush my teeth I quickly dressed and was out the door. The white pony, my truck, as always was ready to take her last journey to my course. Tomorrow I would be taking a new direction because I have finally landed that big job. My time here was intended to be short but it drug on over the course of five years when i only wanted it to last one. I always was searching for the one thing that I was doing wrong that would allow me to be free of my current employment. I never figured it out but accomplished it. This some what haunts me because I had tried to accomplish so much and was always looking for the one thing that would move me forwards in my career. Taking my usual route to work I once again diverged the shortest and quickest route to go by the old factory lot once again. This route pleased me on some deeper level than the one that made me search out the shortest quickest route.

Merging off of the parkway I turn left onto the street that will lead me to my next turn at the olf factory. I drive alongside the tracks and soon come to the spot where I must cross them. This spot has had some reverence for me for quite some time. Letting my mind wonder to the old factory that was torn down some years ago I near my turn. When everything seems to be fall into place like the tumblers of a lock opening a door. I once again see the pedestrian dressed all in black except his socks crossing the street at a light jog. Instead this time he is closer to the tracks unlike before when he was further back towards the bus stop. Once again i only see his socks. Then he comes into focus as I am about to make my turn. Turning the wheel to the left when I was wanting to go right I swerve into the left hand lane. Something is wrong. Last time I only had to slow down and the man was allowed safe passage. Veering and braking to avoid an accident I miss the dark pedestrian. I then head back to the right lane quickly not to miss my turn when suddenly my cab is filled with light. Light from behind me. The lights of the semi-truck I never saw until now. Always enjoying the solitude of this route I never thought to look for other cars. My best chance of avoiding becoming road kill is to just punch it and try and complete my turn and cross the tracks to safety. As my cab is filled with light my ears are filled with the loud horn of the tractor trailer and the report of the air brakes behind me. I can tell that the truck driver did not approve of my decision to cross the tracks. The white pony is revving with everything she has got but then I see the man in the tracks. Not the pedestrian but the one I have seen so many times when I cross the tracks. The one that is there and then disappears. He is standing in the same spot as always, behind the steel framework of the crossing signal post. I think I know who he is now in my last moments, he is the reaper, and he has come to collect. I smile. Then the crash. In all of the different accidents I have been in before things seem to slow down, it didn't happen this time. Things seemed to open up. I see light, the light is the path that I will travel with the reaper. The semi crashes into the back corner of my truck speeding it up faster that I was going before. The little pony starts to spin around and I think I might be safe. As I spin away from the reaper man I think I am going to escape him, but as he fades from view I see him smile, the light goes away. I keep spinning, the jiffy lube comes into vision then fades, the pedestrian with his look of amazement come into vision and is brushed away, the trailer as it screeches to a halt, then the convenient store with its red sign streaks across my windshield. I know where this roulette wheel will stop and it is the last thing I see before I close my eyes. The white pony is on the tracks and i am facing what looks like a tower of silver steel. i am getting ready to crash into the crossing signal post. I see the light in front of me again. I close my eyes waiting for the crash and the smack of my airbag. It never comes.