Crossways
Synopsis
Tony spends the weekend with his sister and her family, and gets a late start for home Sunday night. Too tired to continue, he parks on the side of the road for a short nap. He wakes up too late to make it to work on time. But, as he’ll soon discover, losing his job will be the least of his worries.
Crossways is a flash fiction story with 1,000 words, give or take. I hope you enjoy it, and I’d love to hear what you think.
~Simultaneously published on Wattpad and Royal Road.
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Crossways
Tony woke up sitting in the driver's seat of his SUV on the shoulder of a country road. According to his watch, it was 7:21 AM.
He had left Friday evening to visit his sister and spent Friday evening through Sunday evening with her and the family. She recommended he spend Sunday night, but he didn’t want to miss any work, so he left at 10:00 PM for the two-and-a-half-hour drive. Along the way, he got very sleepy, like crash-and-die sleepy, and parked for what he hoped would be a short nap. But now he was still an hour away from home and a half hour before his job’s 8 AM start time.
When he pushed the button to make a call on his SUV’s Bluetooth system, “No service” was the prompt he received. He tried again, a second and third time, with the same result. He shook his head, turned the ignition key, and the engine fired up. “At least something’s working right,” he said under his breath. He checked for traffic and then continued his journey home.
He reached the outskirts of the city forty minutes later and came upon an intersection he knew well, controlled by four-way stop signs. Only now, as he approached it, he noticed that instead of a regular red stop sign with white letters, there was a circular sign with no letters in high-gloss black. Somewhat confused, he stopped, took a picture of the sign with his phone, checked for traffic, and then continued. A few minutes later, he came upon the first traffic light in the city. Only now, instead of the standard red, yellow, green configuration, there were four lights — black, yellow, green, and blue. Since he was running low on gas, he turned into the gas station on the corner.
He approached a man refueling at the pump next to him.
“Hey, good morning. Can you explain to me what’s up with the weird traffic lights?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, the black, yellow, green, and blue traffic lights at the intersections?”
“Intersections?” The man asked.
“Yeah, you know, the stop and go lights when you’re in your car.”
“Oh, you mean the priority sequencers at the crossways, so cars don’t create a scene.”
“Right. Or crash into each other in the crossways.” Tony added, slightly amused at the word ‘crossways.’
“Well, we hope it doesn’t come to that.” The man replied.
Tony continued, “We can only hope. So what’s up with the priority, er, priority…”
“Sequencers. Priority sequencers.”
“Thank you. What’s up with the priority sequencers?
“I'm sorry, but I don’t understand the question.” The man replied.
“I’m asking because where I’m from, we have only three lights—red, yellow, and green.”
“Red, yellow, and green? So how do you know when to proceed?” The man replied.
“We go on the green, of course.”
“Well, that’s rather dangerous. What’s the red for?”
“The red is for stop.”
“How confusing. When was that change made?”
“Change? It’s been that way my whole life and for decades before. Can you tell me the purpose of the four lights?”
“Yes. It’s really rather simple. The black at the top means stop. The blue one is at the bottom and means "proceed". The colors black and blue remind us that injuries can occur if we don’t observe the priority sequencers. The safe transition from yellow to green to blue prepares one group to go and the other to stop. Plus, it’s logical since yellow and green together make blue. It was very well thought out.”
Intrigued, Tony asked, “When did you start calling them priority sequencers?”
“They’ve always been called that. What do you call them?”
“Traffic lights.”
The man shook his head. “No, see, that’s confusing. Vehicles have lights all around, inside, and out. The road has night lights. These are all traffic lights. Priority sequencers are less confusing.”
“We also call them stop and go lights.” Tony offered.
“Well, that’s just flat out dangerous. There’s much more to it than just stopping and going.”
Perplexed, Tony thanked him for his time, then turned to the pump, took out his credit card, and reached up to where the card reader was supposed to be. No reader. There was no contactless mobile wallet or tap-to-pay reader either. He looked up and down the pump face—nothing except for the price and volume displays.
He turned toward the man again, who was finishing up.
Excuse me. How am I supposed to pay for the gas? There’s no card reader or tap-to-pay.
Are you left-handed or right-handed?
Left-handed.
You wave the back of your right hand over this area here, and it reads the implant. It’s as simple as that.
I don’t have an implant. I have credit cards, a mobile wallet, and cash.
“I’m not familiar with those. Here, let me pay for you as a gesture of welcome to someone new to the city.”
With the wave of his left hand, the stranger had activated the pump before Tony could refuse.
“Wow. Thank you, kind sir. My name is Tony. Yours…?”
“Stewart. Nice to meet you, Tony. I hope your day improves.”
“Wait,” Tony said, reaching into his wallet, “I’d like to pay you for the fuel.” Tony pulled out a $100 bill.
“No, no, Tony,” Stewart said as he looked at the item in Tony’s hand. “I’m not really into miniature art. Besides, mine is a gift to you. Please accept it in the spirit it was given.”
Stewart’s tone was firm. Tony acquiesced.
As Stewart was leaving, he stopped by Tony’s SUV, rolled down the window, and called over to Tony.
“Tony, I was wondering, what did you think about the large explosion that lit up the sky in the middle of the night? It broke several windows in my abode. They say it might have been a fairly good-sized meteor, but they’re not quite sure.”
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