we used to drive miles to avoid left turns

Those moments where time goes impossibly still, seconds stretch out into glacial moments that crawl with a glassy intensity, are quite rare in my world. I can count them on one hand, the times I've experienced them. They are like those moments of profound regret, where you would do anything to take back some choice and you know that the opportunity is forever, irrevocably gone.

The seconds in which I watched the car accident in front of me today were like that.

I had not seen Blanche since I left my first high school. We finally got together today to have coffee and talk. It was so easy, and it was a weight off my shoulders in some ways because it was normal and lovely. We talked and talked, and then planned to drop by her place so I could meet her little family. But then there was a left turn gone wrong and we spent an hour standing on the street talking to police while the storm clouds blew in from the east. A stranger named Logan stood with us and we made the small, disbelieving talk of people who wander accidentally into the wrong movie moment.

Even the police officer said it was the Twilight Zone, that the strangeness never stops.

Blanche is okay. A bit shaken, a bit angry and aggrieved. The other driver was fine. It's just money and hassle and could have been so much worse. A few seconds difference and Blanche could have been badly hurt.

I am really fucking done with the universe trying to hurt my friends. I want this shit to stop.