Death Close By

It was a warm spring evening.  My wife and I were at a park near our house, walking on a path between some woods and a big field.  We came around a corner and saw a beautiful sunset—bright reds and pinks against a deep blue. 

We were both looking up, admiring the sky, when I felt something under my left foot.  I looked down.  I had stepped on a snake. 

“Oh my God!” 

I did a fast, high-stepping dance that turned into a run.   For a few seconds it looked like the snake was chasing me, though when I thought about it later, I decided it was just trying to get to the woods. 

 “What was it?”  I asked my wife after the snake disappeared into the underbrush.

“I don’t know.  It saw a triangular head.”

“A copperhead.”

We started walking again.    I nervously scanning the ground in front of me, looking down now instead of up.  “If it had bit me that pretty sunset would have been the last thing I saw.”

“I don’t think they kill you.”

“Yeah, you’re right.  But it would have messed me up pretty bad.” 

“And your arm’s just getting well.” 

I had broken my arm the month before.  I had just gotten it out of the cast and started therapy.  I began working my fingers when she brought it to mind.

 “It’s amazing,” I said, thinking of the snake and my arm.    “It only takes a second for everything to change.”

            I had the same thought the next day when I got off work and called my wife to catch up.  She had been taking her morning walk, she said, going on her usual route near my son’s school.  A car passed her, she heard a loud crack, and a giant oak tree fell toward her from someone’s yard.  The tops of the branches just missed her where she was standing in the road. 

            “I’ve never been around a tree like that when it fell for no reason.”

  “Maybe the vibration from the car.”

“Maybe.”

“I’m glad you’re alright.”  I felt sick, thinking about what might have happened if the tree had been a little taller.  We talked back and forth until we were both somewhat reassured, then I got my To Do list and thumbed off my cell.

The next morning came in late to work from physical therapy.  I think the radio was talking about a Cinco de Mayo beerfest, but I was mostly tuning it out, focused on what I had to do at work.   

I was driving down Fairground Road, about five minutes out, when a white van in the oncoming lane went off the road.  There was no shoulder and the ground fell off at a steep angle into the woods.  The van sped along at a crazy angle for about fifty feet, somehow not falling on its side, then hit a driveway embankment.   The front rose in the air.  I saw the underside of the chassis, then the van touched down and wobbled and swerved across the road in front of me.  After I passed I watched in my rearview mirror as it came off the shoulder, crossed behind me into its proper lane, and drove off. 

I made a U-turn at the next road and came back to see if they were alright, but they hadn’t stopped.  I drove a couple of miles, U-turned again, and drove back past the spot.  A trail of dirt and debris crossed the road, already being dispersed by passing cars.  It slowly dawned on me that if I’d come along a second sooner or a second later I would have been hit.

Three close calls in three days—too much for coincidence.  The image comes into my head of an angry god throwing thunderbolts and just missing—but why?  I like to think life has a point, that things happen for a reason, but I’ve pondered and pondered without coming up with anything.  Was something trying to get my attention, to alert me to something dangerous that I’ve overlooked?  Or was it only random events?

I don’t know.  And the more I think about it the more puzzled I am.