Late Night Gnats

Bzz…

Bzz…

Dooo

“Hey! How are you? I’m doing good; I’m okay. Did I tell you that Mrs. Diane invited me to her New Year’s party? Yeah, I was surprised, honestly. I didn’t know she held New Year’s parties. Well, I hadn’t seen her in like… a year? So, I went. I know, very out of character for me, but I figured that I might as well. Like you said, if you always say no, then people will stop inviting you to things, and I don’t want her thinking that I hate her or something. I don’t really hate anyone; I just really like my house.

“Anyway, the weirdest thing happened. So, I get in my car. It’s like nine thirty at this point, and on most nights, I’ve already gone to bed. Sun goes down; I go down. Haha… But, um, I keep my radio on. Like, sometimes I turn it down or play music off my phone, but when I turned my car on, it was silent.

“It’s late; I’m drained so I don’t even think to plug my phone in and make it sing instead. I just pull out and start messing with the controls. I turn it up; I turn it off then on. I do everything I can think to do, but nothing is working.

“When I first learned how to drive, I didn’t mind driving short distances in silence, but it takes me at least forty-five minutes to get home from her house with no traffic.

“So, I leave the neighborhood and, though I can’t get the radio to work, everything is fine, but the moment I pull out onto the highway or parkway, you know that massive five lane road? The moment I pull into the middle lane, I feel a tickle on my finger. Once I stop the car, I look down. It’s a gnat.

“I’m weirded out, but it’s not too weird because it was a warm night, and you know Mrs. Diane lives a little far out there. So, I wipe it off on my jeans, turn my blinker on, and wait for all of the trucks to pass. I pull out, go to the light, and as I’m waiting for it to turn green so I can go on the ramp, I see more gnats on my windshield! There's a group of them. On the inside! But wait, it gets weirder.

“Once I get on the highway, going like sixty or seventy, a ton of gnats fly out of my air vents and from the speakers! I swear, every crack in that car had a little black bug in it. A whole damn swarm had made their home in my car. But, they weren’t there three hours ago when I arrived at her house.

“So now I’m barreling down the highway. It’s pitch black out except for headlights. I’m slapping my arms and my chest because they are crawling inside my collar and up my sleeves.

“I start praying and roll down all of the windows, but I can’t even do that! The passenger side window is still broken and now the window to the backseat behind me won’t budge. At all. The window next to me and the remaining backseat window create this windtunnel from Hell. The whole pressure is off in the car; my hair is whipping around. My ears start to hurt so much. The gnats start crawling on my eyelashes. I’m about to lose my mind but what can I do? I’m doing everything possible to not crash the car.

“Thankfully, the wind snatches a ton of them away just in time for me to practically slam on the breaks. Everyone was slowing down because we were being funneled into one lane to make room for a fender bender in the other lane . Once we start crawling, I roll up the windows.

“This is the most… unbelievable part:

As I crept by the accident, I swear one of the cops looked just like you-know-who. Just like him… or like an older version of him. The guy had his face and like, general build. My heart stopped. I held my breath… and he looked at me! Well, he was looking at everyone but I swear he made eye contact because right after, he looked away. It gave me shivers. I hadn’t seen him since we broke up… five years ago now? Or is it six?

“And you know what? I thought I’d be angry. I thought that after all the unnecessary and mean crap he put me through, I’d want to cry or hit him or feel some type of way. But I didn’t.

“For the last five years, I’ve been so scared to run into him or even into anyone who knew me when we were together. Gosh, I don’t even know if he realizes how sick I was when we were together. You know though. You get it, and I appreciate how you stuck with me through that because that was so rough.

“But, in that moment I passed him and he looked away, I felt a moment of shock and then relief. And the second after that weight just rolled off of me, the radio suddenly turned on! It scared the absolute snot out of me. I shrieked and turned it down all the way.

“Like, it had to be a God thing, you know? I don’t know what the point of it was, but it was so strange. My heart was beating like I had just run a mile. The rest of the way home, I either had the radio on low or off. It was the first time I drove in silence since I started learning, and there wasn’t another gnat in the car. I’m so serious; there was a swarm then nothing.

“So… I decided that I’m going to trash this car. I’m ready. Like, this car is showing its age and more things are starting to go wrong with it. I can deal with the air going out half the time and half of the windows working, but I just got a little pay raise at work, and it’s time for me to get my own car. Thank you for selling this one to me. If you have any recommendations, then let me know. I might start going to dealerships on Monday.

“Anyway, I love you. Thank you for listening to me. Let me know about the car stuff. Take care! Love you, bye.”

Boop.