Given Direction

Directions Given (982 words)





Mark Kelley had a strange relationship with his GPS.  To be more precise, what Mark Kelley was born with was a strange relationship to the uncanny. His GPS was simply the current and most tangible manifestation of that relationship.



From the time he was toddler, it became obvious that Mark had a connection to things that needed saving.  At first it was just lost things, like toys and wedding bands. He would find things everywhere his parents took him. His parents went as a far as to place a cardboard box  labeled "Found Items" on their front porch to make it easier for the neighbors to reclaim their things.



Of course there were animals too. There were numerous lost pets and  springtime was plagued with an endless parade of wildlife, mostly babies, that Mark would have transport by bike, because his mother wouldn't allow wild animals in her car, to the local Wildlife Center.



He didn't mind taking the animals on his bike. He loved riding his bike, he loved anything in motion; his parents had discovered that the only thing that would calm colicky Mark, was to drive him around in the car, which meant most of his first year of life was spent in the car.  The bike was different though, on the bike he was in control of where he was going.



As he grew, so did the intensity of the occurrences. Soon he was pushing kids out of the way of cars, catching kids falling out of grocery carts, preventing toddlers from falling in the pool and even saving a classmate choking on a hard piece of candy.

During every episode, Mark remained calm. He acted as though nothing happened and would always try to escape the scene as soon after as possible. The problem was, as calm as he was during the events, his mind would go into overdrive, showing him images of what could have happened.



He tried to tell his mother about the terrifying visions that haunted him, but she told him to stop being silly, everything had turned out fine so just stop worrying so much.



He didn't talk about it after that.



It wasn't until he was sixteen and got behind the wheel for the first time that he felt the terror  lift away. Every notch the needle rose on the speedometer, every digit added to his odometer, a noticeable decrease occurred in his anxiety level. The car also seemed to create a barrier between him and the outside world and the faster he drove, the less opportunity there was for him to need to save anyone or anything.



Out of college he took a job as an insurance adjuster, within a year he was given his first assignment as a fraud investigator, given a GPS and sent on his way.



At first, he was skeptical of the device, but quickly learned that when he yielded to the devices directions he always ended up at the right place, but often by back routes, over rickety bridges and mazes of subdivisions that he would never have found, much less taken, if he used a map.



His trust in the gadget grew over the next several weeks he found himself slowing down, enjoying  the view as much as the speed.

The thing was, the slower he went the more things he found. It started with luggage on the side of the road and wallets and the gas stations. Soon, he was helping turtles cross the road and returning dogs to their owners. 

He wasn't surprised when he started to come upon broken down cars, flat tires or even the overturned car. No matter how dire the save would be, his visions didn't return. Whether it was the driving, the job or the constant commands issued from the box, the visions failed to haunt him.

There was one instance when the GPS failed him. It was raining and he was on a back mountain road when the GPS instructed him to turn. Immediately, the road began to narrow and limbs hung so low and so far out into the road that he was force to stop. He checked the GPS again. He was sure that this was the wrong location, but the GPS insisted that his destination was only several feet away.  By the time he decided to take a chance and see what lay around the bend and beyond the overgrowth, the rain had stopped.

What lay on the other side was a moderate clearing with a small rickety cabin and a view from a bluff that took his breath away. He nosed around a little and decided that this place was abandoned and definitely not the location or the man who had made the claim he was investigating.



Back in the car, he turned the key and the GPS announced that it was recalculating. He hated it when it said that, it always meant that he had failed to follow the directions. He knew that it wasn't his fault this time.



As it turned out, the owners of the land hadn't even realized that they had owned it. A great uncle had apparently left it to their grandparents, who had left it to their parents who in turn had left it to them. It took several months to get the taxes and title work straight, but in the end he was able to buy the land and build a home on it. He was surprised to find that this place made him feel as calm as he did behind the wheel.



He was happy there, at least for the moment. Thoughts of getting a dog or maybe even a more significant companion, but he didn't dwell on that much. The road and his GPS had gotten him this far and when the time was right, they would lead him the rest of the way.