This past weekend my wife and I drove to Northern Virginia and back, approximately 1600 miles round trip.  Up on Friday, back on Sunday.  It was worth it.  We got to see our granddaughter’s first ballet recital.

Maybe it was a little crazy, but when families are geographically separated, that’s the kind of thing you do.

I can’t say that I look forward to long road trips anymore, but at least they give you a chance to think.  When you’re not talking or dodging traffic, that is.

One of the things I thought about was a video I saw on a blog last week.  Perhaps you saw it.  It showed the interior of the driver compartment of a drag racer going 200 miles per hour.  Suddenly the steering wheel comes off and, following the initial shock, the driver calmly activates the emergency drag chute to slow the car as he tries to figure out what he’s supposed to do with the detached steering wheel.  Finally he just tosses to the side as he waits for the car to stop.  (See the video here.)

What the video doesn’t show it what happened next.

At first the driver calmly awaits his crew to help him get out of the drag racer’s cockpit.  No one comes.  Finally he opens the canopy, releases his safety harness, and pulls himself out of the cockpit.  What he discovers is that somehow his world has changed.

His drag racer is overgrown with heavy vines and thick foliage.  The surface of the drag strip is cracked and disintegrating, allowing trees and heavy grasses to grow through it.  The viewing stands are gone.  There are no cheering fans.  There is no pit crew.  There is nothing he recognizes.

The heavy forest that has replaced his world is strange, dark, and filled with noises that bear little resemblance to anything he can identify.  He is terrified to go out into the forest, but he can’t stay where he is.  He needs shelter.  He needs food.  He needs answers.

Is he in the future or the past?  Did he leave his world or did his world leave him?  Is he really in this strange new reality or is he insane?

And what of the dark light he sees deep in the forest, what could it mean?

No matter what the answer, the driver is more than geographically separated from everything he knows and loves.  How he is separated is really up to the writer to discover.

So, what do you think?  Maybe you know.

If you have some ideas, why not share?  In a world where the infinite is possible there aren’t any wrong answers.

If you’d like to share, just click the Leave a comment link.  I’d be interested to know what you think.
© Copyright 2011 by Kevin Fraleigh.