Tales from Bingham Lake - 1. Un-missed

PT Prompt #234

You have three near-misses on the way to work. What happened, and how were they avoided?

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Laura heard the tinkle of her phone beckoning to her, but when she reached over, the device slipped from her grasp. She lunged, as much as the seatbelt would let her, and almost caught it.

In the background, Morgan Wallen sang about how it couldn’t be the last night.

As the brakes squealed, her blood pressure surged. Laura Naugen was already late for work. This had already made her stomach acid to squirt into her abdomen. The gurgling caused an eminent eruption to begin. The contents of the bean breakfast burritos began to become thrusted upwards in her stomach. This was merely the beginning of several automatic reactions to the sensory identifications of external stressors to her anatomical system.

She swallowed and held it down. Her first near miss.

The car ahead of Laura, a Tesla from the symbol on the trunk, had begun stopping, and its back end was skittering, like a bug on hot cement. This wasn’t good.

The truck next to her was veering towards her, and the accident warning signal in her car was screeching maniacally. The truck, which she could see clearly, was rusty, white, and had writing etched on the side. Behind it was a trailer. This trailer was filled with brush, palm fronds, twigs, dead leaves, various other vegetation, and the trailer was swinging towards her. On the 202 north out of Mesa headed for Phoenix, this truck and trailer wanted to crowd her into a lane.

So she turned her head and gasped.

The lane on her left was occupied by another truck. This truck was comprised of a semi-tractor and pulling an flatbed with several slabs of concrete fastened onto the surface.

Laura, seeing no other alternative, slammed on the brakes.

This wasn’t a great option.

As she pressed the pedal down, she looked into rear view mirror and saw a red VW barreling at her.

Without thinking, she sped up.

The trailer to the left of her zoomed past. Its wind grabbed and clung at her. Laura’s vehicle veered from the sheer magnitude of the aerodynamics.

Her second near miss.

Looking back, the red VW wasn’t just racing, it was crowding her, and taking up spaces she’d just occupied.

Laura lurched to the left, though she had no choice in the matter.

Behind the truck was a van. Inside the van was a woman who was dying. This van was trying to bring her to a hospital for salvation. Of course, Laura couldn’t have known that. Not then.

The van must have seen Laura and jolted to the right.

It missed her.

She missed everything else.

Laura closed her eyes as it all passed her.

An unattractive snort came from her.

The traffic thinned.

She saw the tangled mess all come undone.

The woman in the van, the one who was dying, wasn’t a near miss. She passed away as the van swerved into the guardrail and flipped over.