found drama

A. and I are driving down a road. It’s a dirt road headed through a tangle of trees but it’s also a side-street of this town’s major thoroughfare. We’re headed into the neighborhood where we live. We pull up to a stop sign and I check both ways. In my rearview mirror I see someone familiar. Is that…? I recognize the face; it’s a woman named Pauline that I recognize from college. I pulle the e-brake and get out of the car to wave at her just as she is pulling out her cell phone to make a call. She recognizes me and gets out, waving, running up to me to give me a big hug. A. doesn’t really recognize her and waves politely.

Pauline and I get to talking a bit and notice that other cars are coming up behind us, waiting for us to clear the stop sign. We wave them on because there is plenty of clearance along the right side. There aren’t any cars coming from the intersecting street anyway, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Just the same, the jerks in the other cars roar past, gunning their engines and giving us the finer. We laugh it off because it’s just such a bad attitude…

The rate at which they speed past though manages to push the cars off center, turning them slightly away from their original bearings. No one hit our car (or Pauline’s) but they’re now facing at slightly different angles; we assume the air displacement was just that great. Pauline and I exchange numbers in order to keep in touch (on the tiniest pieces of paper I’ve ever seen). But as A. and I got to get back into our car, we notice that the dirt thrown by the tires of the other cars was thrown with such force that they peppered our car like bullet holes.

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