An Unsettling Occurrence
11/11/2022. Western Maryland, just after dark.
Something you need to know for this to make sense; I get words, phrases, and random lines from books or movies stuck in my head the way a person can get a song stuck in their head. Some of them are kind of always in there somewhere, and I enjoy saying them from time to time, in my head or out loud. "I'm Laxmi Singh," or "The trick, Mr. Potter, is not minding that it hurts." One of my favorites and one of the longest, "Bob Wah, your modern rock morning pal, was on the 6 o'clock and 11 o'clock news on channel 13 in Baltimore tonight uh defending the um er broadcast of uh this particular here tune. From MC 900 Foot Jesus, from the CD, 'Welcome to My Dream,' 'As the City Sleeps.' Now, I don't think anyone out there is going to go out and become an arsonist but, I don't wanna stop you! You know, it could happen. It could happen! Everybody's got to do something. Everybody needs a hobby. Anyway, the top 11 at 11, number one! 99 1 HFS!"  I do the voice and everything. I known that sound byte like I know my own name because a young woman I was in love with once (Hi, Kathy-with-a-K) caught it on a mixed tape she made for me, from captures off the radio, mostly. So, the other night, I was coming home from Oakland just after dark, taking the long way down 219 to I-68 because it's a little safer. (The shorter way, through New Germany state park, has deep woods much closer to the edge of the road and no cell service. The long way gives you a wider margin, therefore, more time to see trouble coming. ) As I'm driving through Accident (that's the town's real name) a turn of phrase pops into my head with unusual force and persistence. It's a phrase that old men in Stephen King novels sometimes use, in that Maine accent, and I find it unpleasant on a number of levels. The phrase is, "by a whore's hair," as in, "he missed it by a whore's hair." Stephen King has used it more than a couple of times and it annoys me every time I read it. Anyway, it started repeating in my head so forcefully and so persistently I started saying it out loud, trying to exorcise it, I guess. Sometimes that works the way that playing a song that's stuck in my head a few times will often get rid of it. But, in just the space of driving the last few blocks in town, I went from thinking it repetitively to being distracted by it. I started to notice the unusual forcefulness of the thought and was growing a little alarmed. A phrase has never appeared in my thoughts so suddenly and with such "volume," before. "By a whore's hair... by a whore's hair." As I drove out of town, saying the ugly phrase out loud and thinking about things like exhaustion and migraines and Tourette's syndrome, I accelerated up to the posted 40 mph and, just as I passed 40, a fucking deer jump the guard rail and hit the road at a dead run, like this was a planned suicide! I slammed on the brakes and, knowing it's better to hit one, even a big one like this buck, than to roll the car or hit a tree, steered just enough to improve both our chances. And, by god, if there were water droplets on my driver side headlight shield, the hairs on his ass brushed them off. I braced for an impact that never came. He ran off and that stupid phrase ran with him. I take the position that it was just a coincidence. I believe intellectually that psychic phenomena do not exist. But, I have to be honest, I was completely spooked for the rest of that drive home. I still am, in fact, now two weeks later. It was certainly one hell of a coincidence.
PS: Please, don't judge me by the hashtags. I picked them to direct those who may be interested in this story. Not because I believe in them.
