“On the Bridge”

“The car was twenty-five feet from the concrete, approaching it at about fifty miles an hour. It surprised me that nothing surged in my interior eye, no kaleidoscopic, greatest-hits images of the life of Skylar flashed before me. Conditions were simply peaceful; I had let go and accepted the inevitable. But, an instant later, someone other than me forced the wheel to the left, hard. Hydroplaning and sliding wildly the car’s back end swung right, then the steering wheel turned, again without my direction, to the right, and the back end of the car came left. The front wiggled in both directions, one after the other. I found myself spinning round in circles as the Tercel did multiple 360-degree turns, like a top spun at high velocity. Then the vehicle careered sideways, perfectly straight across the lanes before stopping in the leftmost, northbound one. I looked, up expecting a head-on collision, as it was a normally busy time of night. But there was not a single car in front of me. In fact, there were not any cars that I could see coming from that direction for the full length of the bridge. That could not be, I reasoned, for it was not very late at night. Instinct kicked in then, and I restarted the stalled car and guided it back onto the right side of the highway. Remarkably, there was not any traffic behind me either. The sensation was uncanny, like being in a parallel world for a few minutes. For some reason I felt calm, though, and drove the car further down the bridge toward the city. I guessed that it had not been my time to die just then. I had no idea what had grabbed the wheel; but I felt certain that it had not been me.”