MINDLESS MUSINGS

I don’t remember who I was with, but I know there were three of us. We were standing on the median strip on the Princes Highway, Tempe, facing east. Behind us northbound traffic was flowing constantly and the south bound in front of us was doing the same. Probably should have walked down to the lights, but hey, why bother?

There were only two lanes of traffic moving and the other was filled with parked cars. You could feel the wind whoosh as each vehicle zoomed past us in the outside lane.

A prime mover was headed our way on the inside lane of the southbound side doing the speed limit of 60kph. We all prepared ourselves for an extra strong whoosh to hit.

For some god forsaken reason a car pulled out of a parking spot outside the TAB right into the path of the surging prime mover.

“Holy shit!!!”

Now the prime mover had only a few potential manoeuvres:

• Ram right into the rear of the car that had just pulled out in front of it causing certain destruction and possible death.
• Swerve left and slam into the parked cars causing God knows how much damage.
• Swerve right into the outside lane and avoid hitting the idiot’s vehicle. There was no room for error here. If he swerved just a tiny bit too much he would no doubt take out the three teenagers standing on the median strip. They had nowhere to retreat to. Traffic was flowing constantly on the northbound side behind them, meaning that those three teenagers were sitting ducks.

All we could do was watch and pray. That truck was really moving and he made the swerve right which meant our lives were in that drivers hands. It’s an odd feeling staring death in the face. I don’t recall my life flashing before my eyes. I just remember bracing myself and making a stupid face. There was nothing else we could do; just stand there frozen and watch and wait to see how this disaster was going to play out.

The truck driver executed a perfect lane change in the tiniest amount of room. I have rarely seen anything so beautiful in my life. Such skill! Such precision!

The three of us gave huge sighs of relief as the prime mover whooshed past us in the outside lane. That breeze felt like the gift of life. We stood there for a while longer patting each other on the back before we finally got a gap and completed our crossing.

Thinking back I still smile whenever I recall that near miss. Something as mundane as crossing a highway you cross everyday can suddenly turn into a life and death struggle. None of us had the slightest sense of danger as we darted across the first lanes into the middle. We stood there on the median strip so vulnerable and yet so unaware. We had all done this hundreds of times and have probably done it hundreds more since; yet on that one particular day fate decided to throw the dice. Lucky for us it came out our way.

I would like to say that this changed my life in some way; that it gave me a better appreciation of life, but unfortunately the adrenaline soon fades and we return to our usual selves. The story got told many times and eventually it settled into the back of our minds and even faded from memory altogether. Note that this story is number 22. It just popped back into my memory recently.

Thinking about it now I do feel a sense of extraordinary luck, but I do not have any great revelations concerning fate and fortune. I just smile and thank my lucky stars. I hope I still have a few more lucky stars in store for the future.