Squint

Driving in the dark, dazzled by oncoming headlights, I squint to make out what's coming towards me, what's moving between the cars. My eyes water slightly. I sit in the heat from the engine, blown through little plastic vents into this space inside a box of beaten metal. Here I am, moving fast, turning this cool wheel a few degrees this way, a few that way, so I don't collide with other vehicles, walls, lamp-posts. So I can keep on flying through the night, not have to stop, not have to stop. Blue lights flash in my rear-view mirror - a fire engine coming heavy through the night, its siren shrieking. I slow down, steer towards the curb, approaching a sharp bend, hoping for the best. It barrels past - the weight and the speed and the sound, and that beautiful blue all coming into the field of my senses, and then leaving it again, in a few seconds.