Stoned

I was driving on the freeway in the fast lane on my way home from work yesterday afternoon. My arm was sticking out of the window, as it is wont to do. I opened and closed my hand.

I felt a stinging sensation in my fingertips. I had just brought my thumb and forefinger together in a pinching motion and now I could feel something between them.

I pulled my arm back inside the car. I examined the object I now held. It was a pebble.

At the exact moment I had brought my fingertips together, the car in front of me had kicked up the pebble and sent it sailing perfectly into the minute space between my fingertips, where I had inadvertently caught it.

I examined the pebble and tried to contemplate the odds of something like this occurring. Less than impossible, since it had just happened. But not much less, I decided.

I laughed. What had just happened was quite preposterous.

The infinitesimal chance that I had been in the exact place at the exact time under such exact circumstances, where two objects traveling at extreme speeds in completely different directions could come together for the briefest of moments.

I threw the pebble back out the window before I was tempted to apply this metaphor to my own life any further.

"Sorry pal," I said. "No hitchhikers."