Blinker
Moisture falls from the cloud-crossed sky washed by swirling grays and slivers of white carved by the hidden moon. It isn’t sufficient to even claim it a drizzle. My ninth grade English teacher would have dubbed it a mizzle. A rain that requires the intermittent contribution of the windshield wipers yet not enough to turn the switch one more click. A dreadful noise, indescribable, emits every third swipe of the wipers as they travel over the dry glass. But, if I turn them off, I won’t be able to see the pea-soup thick fog that is blocking me from… seeing… the highway.
The weather forecast predicted visibility of less than a quarter of a mile; I expect they were off by a quarter of a mile. I have seen nothing like this. I have driven the same fifty-seven mile stretch on this highway every Sunday for the past ten years. I should know where I am with my eyes closed. It is strange how much we depend on landmarks and road signs to navigate our way without realizing the need for such things. Over highways and through life.
The radio station fades in and out, mostly out. No music to calm the nerves. The steady cadence of the wipers, with the tertiary screech, is my only companion, as annoying as it may all be.
Yet nothing, absolutely nothing, can be as vexing as the car in front of me with a left turn blinker that has been tap-tap-tapping for over ten miles. Someone who is an expert in such matters could explain how the bright red light is magnified by the soupy fog. It is almost blinding. I know this stretch of highway like the back of my hand; a two-lane blacktop, north and south lanes divided by a grassy median. There is no place to turn left for next twenty-five miles! Why then has she not turned off that damn maddening blinker?
I presume it is ‘she’. I can’t see through the fog and darkness to make absolute designation, and I don’t find myself to be a sexist. Call it a gut feeling. She is a she who is not cognizant of the steady tick, tick, tick of the signal indicator reminding her to turn the blasted blinker off.
Sixty-two times a minute. I counted them. Math is not my strongest skill, but I determined that the red light has flashed one-thousand, five-hundred and seventy times since I first pulled up behind her. It’s not as if I can look away; she is in front of me. I could try to pass her on the right, but the shoulder will be damp and dangerous. I could flash my high beams at her, but I can’t crush the teachings of my father from years ago to never turn on your high beams in the fog. Not even for a second, it could be blinding. Just as well, in her oblivious state of mind she wouldn’t notice my high beam warning.
I haven’t seen another car. Nothing in the southbound lanes or in my rear-view mirror. It is only me and the blinker lady. Nobody to witness an unfortunate rear end bump shattering the irksome light. What if she lost control of her car? Or if I did? An image of our cars tangled and upside-down on the grassy median. Tires rotating haplessly unencumbered by asphalt. Two bodies lying still on the wet ground. No other drivers to see the accident. Or the persistent and undamaged blinking, blinking, blinking.
I push the images away. It is just a light. A red blinker. I struggle to think of the day ahead. An afternoon of football and nachos. Then I remember the season has ended. The Super Bowl is a week past. It is the time of the year when Sunday afternoons offer no pleasure.
I urge my car forward.
What is she doing? Now she keeps slowing down and speeding up as if looking for something. Someplace to turn. There is no place to turn, lady! The blinking is joined by the tapping of the brake lights! I am experiencing what life must be like in Hell.
She has discovered there is no place to turn. Thank you, Lord. The blinker remains in an incurable state of flashing. “Look down, lady,” I whisper, “See the signal indicator. Place your hand with manicured nails on the little stick and push up.”
She didn’t hear me.
My radio crackles to life. We must be approaching the city. We? It’s odd how I now consider her as part of me. Michael W. Smith’s smooth voice fills the car, you are here moving in our midst…
I can see the lights of my destination.
Her left blinker stops.
Her right one joins mine. Unexpected harmony.
I pull into my parking space. She is three spaces over, manipulating her over-sized Lincoln into a ‘Compact Cars Only’ parking space.
I get out of my car. She exits hers.
She beams, “Good morning, Pastor.”
“Good morning Mrs. Wellington.”
“Looking forward to your sermon this morning. What are you preaching about?”
“Patience.”
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