Three weeks ago, I wrote a scenario into “No Good End,” a fiction novel that I have been posting on Twitter 140 characters at a time. It involved an 18-wheeler and a hit man. The 18-wheeler ends up nose-diving into a clump of trees in eastern Alabama beside I-85 and pluming into a fireball that destroys the vehicle, the cab, the trailer and vegetation. Something happened Sunday that made my skin crawl enough to inch my posterior up near my face.
As we drove along I-85, within ten or so miles of the event that I had described in my fiction story, a real 18-wheeler had nose-dived into a clump of trees in eastern Alabama beside I-85, going up in a fireball, destroying the vehicle, the cab, the trailer and vegetation. I don’t want to think what happened to the driver.
Traffic was backed up for miles. My wife looked at the wreckage and said, “That is Nostradamusly creepy. It happened just like in your Twitter novel.”
“Except I wrote that two or three weeks ago,” I said. “I doubt some hit man popped the driver. Also, the odds of that truck being loaded with heroin like in my story is slim to none. What I wrote is fiction. This is just a horribly unfortunate accident.”
“No, it’s creepy,” she said. “What are the odds of such a thing happening so close to exactly where it happened in your story?”
“Long odds,” I said. “Okay, yes, it’s weird as hell, but we haven’t seen a possum with a long, naked tail on the interstate yet. That’s also in my story.”
Fifty miles later, a possum with a long, naked tail waddled across the highway in front of us. I barely missed it. I swear to the Crimson Tide and hope to die if this are not the Cronkite truth.
“Creepy enough for you now?” she said.
After these two odd events, I am concerned that I will find a one-armed, dead pimp in my backyard.
