My friend was pretty rattled by my early morning return and predicament. She was
even more worried that the owners of the house and the parents of the
children were going to be back the next morning and there was little
chance that they would be understanding about a strange boy sleeping
in their house. She also could not send me back into the storm cold,
wet and tired. She got me some dry clothes and put mine in the dryer,
she put me in a unused downstairs bedroom and told me that I would
have to leave at six in the morning. I was just glad I was not dead
so that seemed like a fair deal and four hours of sleep was more then
I had in my narrowly averted past-future; freezing in a car off the side of the road.
I was still scared about being stuck on the side of the road even
though it was over and I was in a relatively warm bed with a strange
man's clothes on trying to go to sleep. At 5:45 my friend came
downstairs to kick me out before the kids saw me or the adults came
home. I changed back into my now dry clothes and was heading out into
the clear blues and purples of an early winter morning. I decided to
try for one more kiss before I went but she was not really in the
mood for that at the moment and I was kiss dodged and gently pushed
towards my sometimes miraculous car. The tough old rattletrap started up and I drove back
into town got gas and drove home the safer but longer lowland route
to the East. The roads were clear and dry when the sun came up and I
considered my situation sighed, smiled and decided that life was not so bad
sometimes, not so bad at all.
