Day 22 - Smoke, Fog and Haze

 SMOKE, FOG AND HAZE

Prompt - Smoke, Fog and Haze : Write about not being able to see ahead of you

At times we take risks, thinking we've calculated the odds to be in our favour, though we know in reality the dealer always wins.  Well, nearly always.

I'd been on the road for five hours and needed food.  And a rest from the concentration behind the wheel.  At least, I thought, the worst was behind me.  The traffic around Birmingham, and later the Liverpool-Preston stretch, had been bad, slow moving although never really coming to a halt.  But now, past Lancaster, the rest of the trip would be less stressful, even in the dark.  I knew the route by instinct now, and felt I was not so far from home.

As I turned into Tebay services the dusk was falling, but the scenery to either side had already started to fade away into the mists.  I had my food, and a walk around to ease the weary muscles, before heading back to my car.  It was dark now, the car park was already less far populated than on my arrival, and I felt confident I'd be stopping outside the door before midnight.  The mist was still around, thicker now, but it was only as I pulled away that I realised just how much it was reflecting my lights back at me, and how the exit out of the services faded into a shimmering grey wall.  

By the time I got within a hundred metres of rejoining the motorway I knew it was going to be bad, that there was hard work ahead, and that this could be a long, long night.  Any attempt to go above thirty five felt perilous, like walking blindfold along a narrow alley.  When I came up on red lights ahead the lorry was already much closer to me than I'd expected.  The tension grew in my shoulders, as I involuntary hunched forward in the forlorn hop that another ten centimetres closer to the screen was going to improve my vision...

White lights in the mirror, gaining rapidly, suddenly alongside, already gone past.  What speed was that one doing?  Sixty?  Seventy?  Insanity?  I slowed further, anticipating a crash scene ahead.  But none came, and I passed a few lorries going even more cautiously than I.  I checked the dials.  I'd done less than fifteen miles in the half hour since leaving the safety of the car park.   Home seemed far away.

Another set of lights rushed to come by.  Did these guys know something I didn't?  Or were they desperate?  Indifferent to life?   But another thought coalesced in my mind, forcing out all others, and began to make calculations.  A white Transit van came by, cab in darkness, but with, crucially, fog lights doing their best to pierce the gloom behind.   The 'If I...' in my head became an 'I will...', and my foot pushed the pedal down in pursuit.  Red lights ahead were swallowed up in the swirl, but only for a couple of seconds as I found the belief to stick to my plan.  I stayed back far enough to maintain visual contact, and concentrated on matching my speed, now around seventy, to his.

My internal sophistry had convinced me.  My brakes were almost certainly much better than a heavier van.  As long as I kept the fuzz of those red lights in sight I'd be able to watch out for any untoward movement of the vehicle, or the brake lights suddenly coming on, and be able to react in time.  Otherwise I'd keep on following, for as long as he kept it up or my powers of concentration allowed.  The road, I already knew, was quiet, so surely those odds were on my side?

It was a tiring way to travel.  My single minded focus on those life lights, and continually monitoring the distance between us, was headache inducing, arm stiffening, grip clenching, despite all efforts to try and relax a bit.  I wondered how long I'd be able to keep this up for.  After fifteen minutes it was starting to feel like a seriously bad idea, my body rebelling against the tension being piled upon it.  And then we were through.  Just like that the world went from opaque shining greyness into soft universal black.  The white van slowed noticeably, and I thought the driver must be trying to bring himself down from the adrenaline rush he'd subjected himself to.

While I could feel only relief at the immediate sense of freedom that moment gave me, of surviving my game of Cumbrian Roulette.  Pulling away from the van, the driver probably unaware of how grateful I felt towards him, I settled down to a comfortable eighty and looked to pull back the lost time.  Midnight looked on again.  And the dealer looked on in despair.