The Editor’s Desk

Random August

A Highway Moment and a Long-Ago Midnight

The Editor’s Desk by Samir Shukla

Whoa. That was close.

The idiot in the blue Camry nearly sideswiped me on northbound Interstate 77. I veered my car quickly a few inches to the right to avoid him. I was alert enough to spot him about to connect with my car.

Everyone was driving above 70 on a packed highway, and this jerk was doing at least 90, and trying to pass others in the smallest spaces available. A lightest touch by the speedster to any of the cars and a deadly pileup would have ensued. Such randomness affects our daily lives. They are not all heart stopping, like this close call, but we brush them off, let out a sigh of relief and move on.

But what if I didn’t have room to maneuver out of the way and the car had made contact?

I have always been intrigued by what if scenarios. I don’t mean that in a sense of regrets about past choices. I have come to believe regrets are thorns in a mind unwilling to grow. It’s more about how often things occur randomly, unexpectedly, forcing us to steer our cars, or lives, into a different lane.

I have never quite believed in destiny. Well, to be more accurate, I don’t believe our lives have been predestined or pre-planned by some elusive higher being.

There are just so many things that happen in each day, that some sort of pre-planned life cycle put in place by some mystical power, is, well, a notion that is rendered nonsensical, at least in my current view of existence.

Our lives are marked by choices we make and those we didn’t make, when our parents or guardians made them for us when we were helpless babies and later young children. Sure, we plan our lives, pursue education, launch businesses, perform religious or spiritual duties, seek love and redemption, travel, among myriad other pursuits in the daily acts of life. No matter how much we plan, though, trajectories are so often redirected by randomness of life, unforeseen events, and happenings. Other people’s stupidity or negligence. Life on this day, on a highway in early August, continued its path, unaffected by the randomness of a reckless driver just barely missing my car. The trajectory didn’t change much, this time.

Events that happen, choices we make, choices made by family members, local or regional or national leaders, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, all write the story of us, our children, and descendants. A slight change in plans, marrying a different person, an unintended pregnancy, a death or illness, a wrong turn on the road, arguments among family members, or bravado of power play by highly militarized nations, are among countless variations

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