The Devil Drives a...
(by Gustav BenJava)

... white SUV. I know he does. How do I know?

The other day I found him tailgating me. Then a day later, when we were sitting in morning traffic, he was suddenly passing all of us that waited for the stoplight (a row almost a block long) going rapidly past us on the wrong side of the street... against traffic.

About a year ago (yes, I'm sure it was him) driving the same car, he was passing by everyone at a different intersection, by driving down the sidewalk on my right, in order to make a right turn at the next light.

But then there was the subaru. The profile was slightly different this time, but the way it happened (three days in a row) I'm CERTAIN it has to be HIM!

I was driving home trying to keep well behind this old beat-up subaru that smelled strongly of gasoline. I didn't want to be too close to the heap of junk when it exploded. But the problem was, he was driving just slow enough to be extremely annoying. So, I finally got into a different lane and quickly passed him.

I didn't want to linger driving alongside that freakish car, but I glance over as I passed and that was him, sure enough: slicked back hair, thick glasses, and, yes, you could just barely make out the tiny little horns on his devilish head.

But the freak thing was, in the ebb and flow of traffic he was suddenly in front of me again, and driving really, really slow this time: driving 25 in a 35 zone, when the traffic conditions didn't warrant that. He could have done at least 30 - there was nobody in front of him.

Well, at last, to my relief he made a left turn at an intersection where I was driving straight. But that slimy beelizbub had made me a good 15 minutes late by all the extra stoplights I caught with his slow driving.

The freakish thing was: same thing on the next night, on my way home from work. Only this time Lucifer is a WOMAN, and she's driving a mini-van. An outline of children appeared through the tinted glass, riding as passengers: but I could tell they were all Freeway Expresslane Dummies. You can't fool me! Besides, what would the Angel of Light be doing with children anyway?

Well, anyway: same exact thing (25 mph in a 35 zone!), and she finally got in the left turn lane and went the same way as she/he had the night before. But not before she made me 15 minutes late.

Then it happened a third night in a row. The Devil lives in Juanita, I tell you. Every night she (or he) drives slow down 123RD, turns right on 100TH AVE NE, then turns left at the intersection of 100th and NE 132nd. Beware if you live in Juanita! The third time I got behind him/her I couldn't tell whether he was a he or a she. And the model and make of the car: one of those newer model Indo-Euro-Asian things. Made in America, Canada and Japan (or a Singapore sweatshop - yes, that would be more his style...  ¶ 9:39 PM

  What the Damn Muzlums Did Tonight
by Gustav BenJava

I was driving home from work tonight, creeping up over the top of a freeway overpass in the throb of traffic. Suddenly on my right and left I see a flash of red light just beyond the guardrail illuminating the cars sitting in traffic below. I hear an enormous sound - I can't exactly call it a boom or a crackle, or a crash. It is the sound of the universe collapsing in on itself and expanding. It is the sound of all sounds mingled and mixed. A sound so deafening that the world becomes silent before my eyes, and things march onward as if I'm looking at them from the outside. I notice the overpass ahead of me has crumbled like broken glass. I see chunks of concrete and asphalt flying every direction, and feel myself falling for a moment.

I don't fall for long. Probably less than a couple hundred milliseconds. Just long enough that I can actually feel it - and then suddenly I am moving in the other direction - up, up and up. I realize what has happened - some sort of bomb. Some sort of mega-bomb! Damnd Muzlums! And I am still ascending. The first thing that comes to my mind is: how will my family go on? What will become of them in the chaos that sweeps across the land in the aftermath of this event. And I wonder if it is so powerful that it will kill them too, not far away - a couple of miles at best. Will it scorch the land and kill thousands? Millions?

And then I wonder why I haven't died yet myself. I am still ascending, and my car with me. I expect to come back down in an arch and land nose-first through somebody's roof or go smashing into a field somewhere like a crater, but I don't. I'm still rising rapidly in the air. And just as I'm about to lean over and look out the window to see what is going on down there - and just how high I am, when I am distracted by a passing airplane. The people on this side of the plane are looking out the window at me with gasps of horror on their faces. And I laugh. Yes, can you believe it? In a situation like that: I laugh, make a big grin and wave at them. This must be highly amusing for them to look out the window of their airplane and see a car sailing by. A little girl in the back windows waves back at me - smiling brightly.

And then I remember my own daughter. The airplane is below me now, and as I lean over to look I see a great thrust of wind at first push the airplane sideways so it starts into a roll, but then sheer both wings right off. And my heart goes out to those poor people, and that little girl waving at me... and my own daughter. And I wonder when I will begin my descent, and what it will be like slamming into the earth at a couple hundred miles per hour. And then I notice the light start to go out of the air, and the sky start to darken, and I suddenly realize I am still ascending, and now I'm thinking: I've left the atmosphere. What will I do? How will I re-enter?

And now I'm in the darkness of the star-speckled sky looking down upon the blue-green earth below, and I'm thinking: dear God, how will I get out of this? And at the same time I'm wondering: how will I survive? Can I possibly survive? How much air is there in this car, and how long will it remain before some leak causes all my atmosphere to escape.

And now I am passing a satellite and I remember: I have satellite cellular. So I turn and whip out my lap-top that always sits beside me on the passenger seat, and I turn on my blue-tooth, and hit the connect button on my cell phone and next thing you know I'm on the net. But how can I contact anyone? My wife doesn't read her email more than a couple times a month, and I can't possibly survive that long. And then I remember my blog, and so here I am.

Help me! Can anyone out there do anything to help me? Help me, please!  ¶ 9:23 PM