We
were getting quite near my house, when the taxi driver was warned by
one of his colleagues, that not far ahead on our route there were police
doing a random alcohol control check. As it was impossible to turn
around where we were, nor escape by a side street, the taxi driver
confessed to me that he had had a couple of drinks just earlier on with a
couple of childhood pals he hadn't seen for years.
"Well, what do you suggest we do?". I couldn't think what I was expected to say.
"You
come over here and take the wheel." He said, "And I will sit at the
back, as if you are the driver and I am the passenger."
I laughed and shook my head. The proposal seemed absurd. Then I saw, through the back-view mirror, his look of desperation and, panic. I began to feel it too, inexplicably shouldering some of his responsibility of the family burden and obligation, that would befall him should his license be taken away. I argued silently with myself that there's nothing I could do to help, but with my inborn weakness in my character, I quickly found myself sitting behind the wheel and the driver was in the back seat.
Arriving at the roadside control, a traffic policeman signaled me to stop at the curb. Then he approached and told me to step out and blow into the breathalyzer. I did, not without some trepidation and fear. Although I had not taken any drink at all, I knew the organism could, under circumstance of stress, produce all sorts of God knows what substances. By good fortune it showed me clean and I was allowed to continue on my way. I stole a glance at my 'passenger', he was smiling and thanking the policeman (not me!).
As I said before we were now even nearer my house so there's hardly point to make the change over. By the time we were totally out of sight of the police, we would be at my door anyway. So I drove on and stopped at the front porch of my building where, after casting a look at the meter, the taxi driver took out a €10 bill and handed it to me, opened the back door, stepped off the taxi, and disappeared inside the building!
All happened so very fast I didn't even have time to react. By then, another customer had got into the back seat and ordered me to "Step on it, Airport, I'll pay you extra!"
How strange reality is and how unexpected life could be, I thought, while I turned on the ignition and stepped hard on it as I was told.
Foot Note: Seven years ago, I entered a competition submitting a 100 word only fictional story in a local newspaper. By luck I won. The story was also put in my Blog when I was with Yahoo 360. I wrote a few more later just for fun, 5 or 6 I think, all ended up in my Blogs there. Since then, sporadically, I had written some more short, fictional stories. Fun to do and without the imposed restriction of limiting each story to 100 words.
Current Mood: 
Creative
Creative
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