Intent To Kill On That Day

I2 Years ago I was driving behind a tractor on a country road in County Kerry and in no hurry but did have an appointment to keep. Giving the tractor driver a hint by keeping to the right and towards the center of the white line of the road, I figured he would ease to his left in a show of driver camaraderie to let me overtake, but instead stubbornly held to the centre of it even when the road widened and he had already passed a lay-by. Two more miles went behind us and the journey suddenly seemed laboured and claustrophobic. I switched off the radio for I needed to pay attention as I became aware that something was going very wrong here and it was more than a state of mind.

I decided to beep the feeble horn of the car. First a little bit tentatively, then a bit more assertive, with the last beep having a more plaintive edge to it. Still nothing except the steady loud rhythm of the tractors engine and the smell of cow dung blowing back at me. Each second seemed a minute but the sense that I was in danger grew and in the next seconds I would know I was.

As we approached uphill a bend in the road, the tractor driver held out a meaty hand and started to wave me around and on to pass him. This baited piece of meat was doing what it was intended to do by the moronic brain of the man that controlled it, and I seized it in a serious error of judgment. I pressed on the accelerator in a desperate bid to put this all behind me not thinking what might just be in front of me, and weaved around the creaking rust bucket mechanical dinosaur fueled by a certain desperation. Bearing down suddenly opposite me was 10,000 pounds of moving steel called a truck, driven by a kindly but shocked face. It was the end and the beginning of something that would stay with me for the rest of my life.

I pulled back and in behind the tractor within a sliver of space that defied the laws of moving parts. I shuddered to a halt as the tractor made distance in front of me and the truck I could not see anymore. Space, empty space, dotted by bleak but beautiful landscape was all around me. I was alive, I was still alive.

I stayed in the middle of the road in that car in a helpless state of euphoria for over 5 minutes knowing that I would go and see tomorrow. No other car appeared or be noticed to disrupt this altered state, a state of mind that overshadowed thoughts or actions of revenge long enough that when I went to look for the man after I came out of it, he had vanished into one of the many arteries of lesser known boreens and roads that were everywhere.

Since that time I have wondered what had possessed that man who had intent to kill on that day. It would have been the perfect crime and only he would have known the truth. Would it have served his need to lash out at the unhappiness and frustration of his own life by the sacrifice of mine. I simply will never know.

I do know I will never trust any car driver in front of me ever again about something that I cannot see with my eyes only. 

Barry Clifford