The muddy water hit my windshield so hard that it made me jump back in my seat. I reached for the wiper lever and gripped the wheel a little tighter. Work, dammit! The steering wheel adjusted slightly upward and I fumbled for the next lever, thinking I should brake, but knowing I didn't want to be late. In the moment before the wipers moved, right when my mind is beginning to freak because I'm blindly manipulating two tons of future scrap metal that holds a very special cargo (me) and I have no idea of which direction I'm going or what lies in the road ahead, the image struck me again. The brownish water formed a series of small veins as the surface tensions tried their best to resist gravity’s unavoidable downward pull or dent in the fabric or whatever it is that is moving objects together these days. Small chunks of white ice crystals followed the trails built by the faster-moving streams of dark liquid creating a tie-dye web of brown, white, and blue sky shining through. Brown rivers rambled across one another, sometimes rushing a flood of energy earthward. Ice chunks joined to make dams that turned brown and glued themselves to the glass. A map. A snap shot of a map. The rubber blades streaked across the canvas, making art school expressionism out of the Pittsburgh Glass Pollock, revealing the blue background and the bright red brake lights of the truck that had driven through the mud in front of me. I slammed on my brakes and skidded toward the big steel bumper. If I had waited another second we’d have collided for sure. Some times a complete stop is the only way to proceed safely.
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