Everyone has an irrational fear of some type: a horror of something that can’t hurt you, or at least is highly unlikely. I for one am bothered by thunderstorms, due to almost being hit by lightning on a Boy Scout trip. My girlfriend loathes moths and butterflies, because “they’re like tiny weird aliens, and I don’t like them. Plus they’re rude.” Sometimes when I drive, I have the following irrational fear:
One of my fears, is that
I’ll be driving through historic downtown
listening to Weezer
with the music turned up
so loud (it’s punk rock, you have to)
that I won’t be able to hear the fog horn.
Some jokester might have cut some wires
and the lights won’t be working anymore
and the gatekeeper bar just won’t show up,
hungover again.
The front wheels of the GMC Envoy
will bounce over the first rail,
and I’ll brace for that second bounce
but it won’t ever come.
The train’s pilot will obliterate my left middle window
shearing through the car with a slick metallic roar
like a child crushing a tin foil cube.
My head will snap to the left
as onlookers scream.
I’ll probably try to yell
but what with my collapsed chest
I don’t think it will work.
Even if I could, the roar of the train
would drown my cries out,
the flutter of a butterfly next to a Boeing engine.
The car will be dragged through the gravel on both sides of the track
before sliding off the train and swerving into a tree
throwing my head from left to right
finishing what the train started (see also: death)
Some woman will scream and
some engineer will be sued and
some journalist will write a sob story and
some people will cry.
That is one of my fears.
Classic Clark 