THE BOUQUET OF FLOWERS

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I’m telling you about the affair.

My single meeting with the man was clean and bright……and burned me down.

This car I was driving was one of a line of “fifty-dollar jobbies,” vehicles so decrepit that I know the long solo trip was necessary, though the reason for undertaking the adventure is now hidden behind the events of the affair.

I was still a couple of hours from home, and had decided to take a dirt road for a few miles. I don’t know what reason my mind gave for this decision. It wasn’t a shortcut and it didn’t dodge any traffic. I certainly knew no one there.  There is no logical explanation for me being on that barely-traveled lane with a car that suddenly wouldn’t run and with darkness coming on too fast.

I vaguely wondered what experience was awaiting me while I stood gazing at the dimming empty land which, in that moment, seemed vast.

Actually, the wait wasn’t too long, and the man who stopped happened to have a well-stocked toolbox in the trunk of his car. He took a while to get my car running, then advised me to follow him to his home, where he had the proper whatever-was-needed (memory fails on this, and it’s not in my notations) to make him feel that I would have a safer trip home. I did follow him to his home, which was near a log cabin which, in turn, was near the railroad tracks.

After I drank his iced tea while he again worked under the hood he disappeared into his house, and when he returned he gave me a folded paper with his phone number so I could call him if I had trouble on the rest of my trip.

Then he handed me a bouquet of flowers.

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The first thing I did when I drove into our yard was to reach into my bag for the telephone number.  It wasn’t there, and a long search didn’t turn it up.  It didn’t seem to be anywhere.

Hubby, then a mechanic, was favorably impressed when he saw the new whatever-it-was under the hood.When I drove back to thank the strange man for his selfless act I couldn’t find the log cabin and I couldn’t find anyone who knew of a log cabin.

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But — I had the flowers.

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PEACE : Nelladell

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