Intermission: Things Which Are On The Road At Night

 Drew and his wife were excellent hosts, we joked and memed before going to the movies. At the end of the evening, just before midnight drew near the road ahead was bleak and ominous. It was as though it had reached out with hungry tendrils and the drivers of evenings past screamed for me to stay away. Most of the gas stations were closed and all but empty, few lights were on, save for that of the highway once I left Tulsa.

 It was as though the wind itself was a narrator whispering omens of doom in my ear, although the windows were rolled up. The night was colder than anything I was used to, the sort of night were the chill only begins to creep into your bones and doesn't fully commit to gripping your spirit along with it.

 Eventually the highway became little more than a two-lane road cutting through small towns, but these towns didn't feel like people lived there. The streets were empty, the lights were off, there were few cars. No stray animals were to be found, neither vagabonds or people randomly waiting around in the night, not even police. 

 Then it began to happen, bouts of mist. They were more thick and the clouds above and would settle in seemingly randomly and in the blink of an eye. The sensation was that of a friend sneaking up on you from behind and giving you a hug, but instead of grasping my big ol' gut, they cupped my eyes as I was doing forty in a thirty-five. The deer signs began to show up as well, that coupled with some of the winding roads which began to appear spelled out a recipe for disaster. 

 Every so often the mist would clear, as though the utter emptiness of a black hole surrounding empty highway were any reassurance. The deer signs would be gone for a spell, and the heater on my car still worked. I was in the eye of a storm of nightmares, only for the mist and its cohorts to appear again.

 Once and once more this happened, the night thoroughly enjoying its game of cat and mouse, all I could do is watch my speed and keep my eyes on the road as my playlist carried on. There was one particular small town, right on the Arkansas/Oklahoma boarder where the mist began to clear up, but across the road bolted that which I'd eaten on many occasions, seemingly here for revenge, or perhaps escaping a pursuer of its own. A few hundred pounds of pure, natural life hurling across the street from out of the mist, only feet ahead of me and in a split second, I hit my breaks while yelling things that I won't leave in this blog post. It escaped shortly before I arrived and my wits were seemingly still intact.

 After passing through this town, the road began to twist and turn even more, I'd ask if I'd be driving upside down for my next trick, but I didn't want to test my luck. Finally, I'd found my way back to some normal highway, and my exit wasn't far.

 The night had let me walk away with my life.