Behind A Truck

This frightening old truck is not the truck that I was driving at the time, it just felt that way. In the 1990s I drove a new white Ford F-150 pickup truck. On the day that my life might have branched into hell, I had only gone out to start up my truck and go to work. I paused for just a moment before starting it because I saw some toddlers, about three or four years old, riding their tricycles along the sidewalk toward me. The expressions on their faces were a little too animated. They seemed alert. Were they curious about my truck? I pulled the keys out of the ignition, got out of the truck and walked around to the rear of it. There was another toddler, a little boy on his tricycle. He was parked under my rear truck bumper. I had to argue with him to get him to peddle himself back up onto the sidewalk, he did not speak English. If I had not noticed the other toddlers, had not recognized the expressions on their faces, had not gotten out of my truck to see what might be going on, my life would have branched that day into hell for the toddler and his loved ones and me.

Caption: Behind A Truck

by Annmarie Throckmorton 2018