Fading tail lights

     The damp, cold air found its way into my entire being. I pulled the hood over my head and began the two-mile walk to town. The cold mist soon turned to drenching rain, seeping into my shoes with every quick step I took. Not a single car seemed to be on this road tonight, but then who would want to. If you were a resident, you were already safe and warm inside your house and to be truthful if you weren’t living there well let’s just say it gave new meaning to the words "Whistlestop."

     By now I was all but freezing. My hands thrust deep into my wet pockets only escaped the bitter winds but still had little feeling left in them. My feet soaked, and cold tried to keep up the pace, but I feared they wouldn't carry me much further. Funny how at times like this my memory fades back to the time I was walking home from school after missing the bus. It was the dead of winter and everything that could freeze did. I had a warm jacket, gloves, and rubber snow boots but the freezing cold found its way to me and time began to slow with each step I took. I saw myself laying in a frozen ball alongside the road never being discovered until the spring thaw.

     I was numb now, each step an effort on my part to reach my destination where warmth and dryness were waiting. I had walked over a mile by now, and my only companion was the sound of the rain hitting the empty street. Was this to be the way I left the world? My hope was fading fast now as the reality of my situation sank in. Then out of nowhere a car approached and stopped. I managed to turn my head seeing out the side of my hood and heard the words to get in quickly. It could have been a serial killer for all I cared, the car meant warmth and life.

     It wasn't a resident of the small town I lived in or anyone else I knew. Just a passerby trying to do a good deed for a stranger in a bad situation. He offered me some hot soup from his thermos which I greatly excepted. A cheerful young man wearing fatigues with airborne patches, telling me he was on his way to Fort Dix to be shipped out to the front lines. His second tour of duty he said smiling more than I would be in his situation. Not many more words were spoken between us, as I had reached my destination. I watched as his tail lights faded into a curtain of rain and the unknown. At that moment I was ashamed of my own worries about cold feet and lack of any warmth. I stood in the bitter cold watching until the red dots of his tail lights vanished hoping someone would stop and help him if he ever needed a hand. Wherever that may be.

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