The word for the six-sentence blog challenge this week is Zone. I thought of dead zone, but that was too depressing, I thought of residential zoning, I thought of hardiness zones in gardening. And then there is IN the zone or zoning OUT. So here’s my GirlieOnTheEdge blog challenge.
I make my living behind a tough sheet of Plexiglass™—driving a Kenworth coast to coast.
Late at night under a waxing three-quarter moon, with a full tank, 1,000 miles of I-80 ahead before the next fill, and hardly any other traffic, I was alone at the wheel, in the zone, when I spotted the elephant in the middle of the road.
I locked up the brakes, watching the elephant get bigger in my windshield, smoke billowing from my drive tires in the side mirror, and my trailer staying mostly behind me where it belonged, not swinging around in a jackknife.
When I finally came to a stop, the elephant had vanished, so I drove to the shoulder, set the brakes, pulled on the flasher, and climbed out on the step, my hand cold on the hand grab, to track the elephant into the trees, because even Pennsylvania potholes aren’t deep enough to hide an elephant.
Three more times, I saw the elephant, her trunk waving like a benediction over the hood, somehow opening a window to a forgotten childhood trauma.
When the beast appeared during a blizzard in Nebraska, I packed it in because, if you can’t trust what you see with your very own two eyes, it’s time to get off the road and get your head straight.
