Screeching Tires

My knees were so weak, I barely had strength to walk to the safety of the sidewalk... with the bus-the driver cussing me to pieces for not running out of the road like a sensible being, the bus-full of people wondering if I had a death wish, or if I was slightly suicidal or just plain crazy.

And me? I just stood there with my big, teared-up bulb eyes watching the bus drive away, trembling ever so slightly...

*SMH* Screeching tires. I've been causing/hearing that sound since I was a tiny little thing. My first major road accident was when I was four, crossing the road to go home from basic school. A bicycle man was coming down the hill full speed and couldn't brake in time. He ran straight into me and sent me sprawling... destroyed my little pink lunch kit (funny the things you remember... I don't even remember dude's face, all I remember is that he ruined my cute little lunch-kit and I was devastated).

Since that time, I have been plagued with an irrational fear of crossing the road... a situation accutely intensified by my move from rural country to urban town.

I loathe crossing town roads. Too many lanes and lines and lights to look out for... especially at cross-roads with four to six different lines of traffic... I still get scared about it (no kidding). And it's become a self-reinforcing habit. I get scared, my timing goes off, and by the time I swallow the panic and work up the courage to start the arduous trek across the road, the traffic light changes, and here comes a line of speeding cars at little scared me...

My mother is always especially concerned about this, because when I'm scared like that, I don't fight or fly. I freeze.

So this evening I was crossing the road and a huge white bus suddenly turned the corner and came at me full speed... I remember the flash of white, a bus-full of frightened people screaming 'moove!' and more than anything else, the familiar sound of screeching tires...