Blind Driving

It started as simply one of those morbid thought streams imagining going blind and what would be given up. Like driving. But I got stuck there and started playing with it a bit, just a little at first. I'd be driving a nice straight section of deserted road and I'd close my eyes and count to 3; then 6; then 10; my eyes popping open as I hit the shoulder and veered back to my lane all senses lit like a torch ablaze.

And then I started to include oncoming cars; only a split second the first time. But I got bolder and the times longer and I waited for a honking horn before the correction and blur of an angry frightened face.

The last time was a large truck and I willed myself to keep them closed. I anticipated the nano second sound of smashing steel: would it be perceived? I waited through the screaming horn and whoosh of vacuum sucking shudder of the pass before white knuckled swerve from mid road back thumping braking stone-spitting skidding on the shoulder come to rest. Sweating, trembling, forehead on clenched wheel, "I'M ALIVE! DEAR POUNDING HEART I'M ALIVE!" Who knows how close the miss, how far off the road he'd had to go. "I could have killed him. I'm so sorry. Jesus I'm fucking crazy. I have to stop. I can not do this again."

But there are still times, certain places, you know, where the gravity is stronger and pulls you down more, and I'm tempted like an ex-smoker for another fix.