"I can already hear Ratchet complaining" YOU CANT HIDE THAT IN THE TAGS THATS HILARIOUS-
just imagining a vehicle drives by, a human stops their conversation to watch it with their eyes squinted, "... something's wrong with that. I couldn't tell you what...but something."
(Continued from here)
You follow the semi-truck that is a person, down the road. They never stop for gas or for fast food or to unload the massive trailer attached to the cab. They obey all the traffic laws with utmost precision. Which is good, because on the occasion another car merges onto the four-lane road, without fail the driver has the exact same moment of shock you had. A quick slam onto the brakes, looking around for whatever is causing that odd sensation.
Like you, though, they calm down quickly. Maybe writing it off as static electricity on a dry winter day, or sleep deprivation. An episode of low blood sugar. Because although the sense of presence is unmistakable, so is the unshakable sense of calm. It’s the opposite of the sense of impending doom before a lightning strike or a heart attack. It’s peaceable. Welcoming. It reminds you, strangely, of being a child and playing with a colorful parachute with your classmates at school. A billowing thing moving with life in the hands holding it, snapping and crackling with motion and energy. And very, very big, a false sky overhead when it’s your turn to run from one side to the other. But protective, smooth and sleek as silk, rippling over you and only just barely touching against you.
Yes, the handful of drivers calm down quickly from their startle. But unlike you, oddly fixated on finding out what's going on, they let the human tendency to turn away from things that are strange and unknown, take over. An instinct that author Douglas Adams cheekily called the SEP: Somebody Else's Problem Field.
The other drivers switch on their turn signal, and slide onto the exit lane. Their headlights swoop through the gathering dark, and they’re gone. And some deep feeling tells you that if you were a smart little biped, you'd do the same instead of following a strange feeling further into this artificial jungle of concrete and asphalt.
You keep following anyway. You drive and drive and drive and drive. And then a light comes on. Low fuel. Groaning, you wonder for a second just what you’re actually doing. What are you going to do if you manage to catch them, just walk up and say hello? Are they an extremely advanced AI self-driving transfer truck? Some lab-made mind broken out of its barriers and trying to make a bid for freedom? Would they welcome you? Distrust you? Run you over? Not all forms of life are friendly...especially if they have cause to be afraid or defensive.
But you don't think they would harm you. In fact, you're sure of it. For reasons you can't even put into words, but somehow feel like the touch of a reassuring hand on your shoulder. You still don't feel threatened by this...whoever they are, that you're still stubbornly chasing after.
Either way, you're a few miles from running out of gas on the highway, and it's both dark and nearly deserted now. The sun has gone down completely, the moon rising above. You're driving through a long, lonely stretch of road you've never been on before, and when you start looking for signs for a turnoff to a gas station -
One exit after another passes, highway signs blank and bare. No gas stations. No motels. No fast food places. The distance between exists grows, and grows, leaving only the black dragon's mouth of road stretching out before you – and the red tail lights ahead burning steadily like eyes, watching you.
You grab your phone and try to get directions to the nearest gas station, only to curse when the screen goes still and then dark. You'd usually have it on the charger at home by now.
The situation nearly makes you forget what you were doing, as you realize you've managed to follow a strange presence out into the middle of nowhere. Alone.
Your car gallantly tries to carry you on through the night, but eventually, the lights flicker and the engine gives a weird kick. The tail lights of the semi-truck disappear into the distance, out of sight, as you groan and pull over into the breakdown lane just as your car shuts off.
Stupid. Idiot. Dangerous, what was I thinking! The half-moon illuminates the thick swaths of trees to either side of the road. An actual forest surrounding this man-made one. You feel tired all of a sudden, exhausted. As good as lost, too, and disconnected from any help. You sit there, looking blankly up at the stars as you try to gather yourself to come up with some kind of plan to fix the mess you've impulsively gotten yourself into.
Then bright high-beams are coming toward you from the other side of the highway. Distant, but growing closer. It's the first sign of any kind of life you've seen in probably half an hour, out on this lonesome road, and you hurry to jump out of your car to wave them down. It's not safe to rely on a stranger's help, but in the moment, with only the moon for company and a much greater sense of strangeness all around, you'll take your chances.
You blink past the bright lights, and see a gleam of shining silver grill against the glossy red paint of -
You drop your hand mid-wave, pressing back against your car, hands gripping the top of the open door as if it might shield you from that feeling. But it drapes over you once more as the semi-truck closes in: strange and familiar, known and unknown, enormous but terribly gentle. Just like that, you consciously, forcefully accept what your senses have been trying to tell you all along. You are not alone.
