Science Fiction is Real

First of all, I hope that this posting finds you safe at home or some other location, off of the road and away from the snow, sleet, and ice that is making our Thanksgiving travel plans this year...interesting to say the least. I was blessed with clear roads and hope you were also.

I left campus after my 12:50-2:30 class, and it took me until 3:30 to be actually on the interstate. I didn't want to hit traffic and unfortunately I did, with it taking me nearly 45 minutes to move from 8th and 12th to I-29. Needless to say by the time I finally merged onto I-29 South my patience was running thin and I was shouting my fair share of obscenities.

As a neurotic person in general I knew that driving angry wasn't good and to lighten the mood instead of putting my book on CD in right away (stop laughing, if you had a 6 hour drive to yourself you'd find something to keep yourself entertained) I did my best to jam out to some of my iPod's extensive loud, angry middle-school era music.

After about roughly an hour of that I was felt as though I had had my fill of lame, punk rock music and switched from iPod back to the radio. As I did so I was suddenly aware that I was the only car on the interstate. Seriously, the only car.

I'm not going to say that I wasn't paying attention to the road as I was driving, I was just much more preoccupied shouting along to my music and not really concerned about my surroundings, other than following the road as it banked and curved on its way South.

I checked my mirrors probably three times, and as I was still in southern North Dakota the road was flat...making my visibility quite extensive. I checked everything again. Nothing, not even a lousy car pulled off on the shoulder, just the flat expanse of the Interstate.

It's kind of an eerie feeling, being all alone. I decided that right about now maybe it wasn't a good idea to listen to a dull book so I switched back to my iPod...but got no response. After trying all of the different buttons, nothing. My phone was dead too. Not literally, it was on but had no service. No bars, no roaming, no "Verizon Extended Network"... nothing.

I suddenly felt as though I was dreaming. You know that really weird feeling where nothing seems real. Like you had been in a deep sleep and suddenly awakened? I felt groggy and light-headed, the colors seemed cartoonish the whole experience like an imitation of reality. It didn't feel right. For example, I could see the tachometer on my car, see the needle rise and fall with the engine...but I didn't feel it. I turned and glanced and could see the dashboard, see my hand on the wheel, but it all felt too surreal.

This experience continued for approximately 4 minutes when suddenly a car whizzed by, passing me on the left side...jarring me back to reality. Funny thing was, I never saw the car coming and didn't hear it approach either. Naturally you'd think that I would have heard it or seen it approach in my mirror, but it wasn't.

It was as if I had passed into a different place, a mirror universe or something perhaps. It was crazy. What was even crazier was the car that passed me had Nebraska plates. A gold late-model Pontiac Bonneville with a "70 county" registry number (which interestingly enough is the ID number for Dakota county...)



Looking back, the whole experience most likely has a solid, logical answer. I was probably distracted, paying attention to something else rather than the road, which would explain my experience. Truthfully it has been a really long month/year. I've also been really preoccupied with large, abstract concepts as well. With the end of my Concordia career in sight I've been really evaluating lots of things in my life. Recent events have also prompted me to really think a lot about my mortality. Two kind of big things to grapple with, amidst existing and ongoing family drama mean I've been juggling for a long time. I'm pretty good but perhaps I dropped one of those flaming torches, thus resulting in my experience today.

Regardless of what it was, I'm glad it happened. Despite the fact that my reality seemed anything but that, I did feel alive though at the end of that experience, something that I'm thankful for more everyday.