A Familiar Place

         Who would have thought that a road she had been intimately familiar with for years would offer such new sights?  There was the pothole at the start of Exit 79 – she had taken the turn every work day for 17 years, and unfailingly cussed the pothole each time she hit it.  Now, watching another car take the same turn, and rattle briefly just the way her Camry clunker had, she cackled with glee, before hurriedly looking around to see if Peter had heard her.  However, his attention seemed to be on the bridge, so she figured she had time.

         The bright red gas station with the peeling paint, the only structure for miles, caught her eye.  Looking around, she saw Peter busy adjusting something on his back.  Before he could stop her, she had flitted to it.  It had a huge hand-lettered sign advertising fresh pizza and cold beer.  She had always wanted to stop but was running late in the morning and too exhausted in the evening.  But try as she might, she couldn’t get the attendant’s attention.  Finally, she gave up and helped herself to a slice.  When it kept slipping through her hands, she abandoned it.  Talk about grease!, she grumbled.


         She moved to glare at the light bulb she had complained about on the toll-free number a million times.  It was the only one on a dark stretch of highway through the cornfields of Iowa, but no one had responded.  Now, she finally knew why.  She had just examined it from top to bottom.  Seemed it was just a pole – the connection for light had never been made. 


         As a deer came closer, she was struck with an insatiable curiosity to find out where it lived and what it did when it wasn’t running across the empty highway.  Did it have a family?  Or at least a girlfriend?  Wait, it was a “he”, wasn’t it?  Silly things moved too fast to tell.  To her surprise, she could keep up.  So much for all the gym talk.  Those flabbies at work needed it – she was a natural.  She sighed as she saw the deer family - the stag she had followed, a nursing doe and two skinny fawns settled in brown grass behind the crumbling concrete of an abandoned factory.  As the factories had receded, the deer population had been free to expand.  But vegetation hadn’t kept up with the increase, and the deer often hunted desperately for food, particularly during a drought like this one.  A coworker used to jokingly wonder if deer thought of automobile headlights as glowing ears of corn when they crashed into them. 


         Speaking of lights, she wondered why it was so bright.  It was supposed to be dusk, wasn’t it? 

         “Time to go, Angel”, came Peter’s soft voice.  As she turned to follow, he tried to turn her the other way.  “No, this way…”


         But it was too late.  She had just seen her own mangled form inside her crumpled car.  A dark highway and a running deer had finally proved to be the deadly combination she had kept calling the toll-free number about.  Oh well, she shrugged, as Peter gently led her over the bridge and towards the pearly gates, it was time for a change anyway.  Perhaps Paradise needed an accountant…?