Ghostly Phone

As I was getting ready to start this letter Isis, my daughter’s dog,

 who was lying on the end of the bed looked up at the ceiling fan that I had just turned off. She then jumped up and looked at it and then at me. She leaped from the bed, turned and looked up at the fan, then at me and then back at the fan.

  Dashed from the room, turned around at the door and stood with her head cocked staring at the ceiling fan. I can see the fan as I sit here and noticed nothing but, I had yet to look directly at the fan because frankly I was fretful I might see something. A huge spider, a giant cookaroach, a snake, the ceiling swirly in a ghostly white vortex of plaster and mist, a bloody leg dangling from the apartment above me. A vampire hanging from a fan blade. A demon clinging with sharp talons from the space behind the motor just outside of my vision.  Isis gave me a long look, the ceiling a glare and raced off. I got off the bed and with my eyes glued to the fan circled it looking for whatever terrifying monster was going to leap off at me. There is nothing there. That does not mean there is nothing there; that just means I cannot see what she saw.

This all reminds me that last night when I turned off my phone and set it down I heard a man’s voice come from the phone in a language I could not detect, say three short words, the final word fading. I picked up my phone and there on the screen was a picture frame. It looked like it was made of wood elaborately carved. It circled the entire size of my screen perfectly and was rectangle in shape. 

There was nothing in the frame; it was not clear like a photograph but shrouded like I might have been looking at it in a darkened room. A voice, which seemed to be inside my head screamed at me not to look or move the phone so that my face was framed. I put the phone down and as soon as I did I wondered if what I had just seen had really happened. I picked the phone up again it was black, blank, shut off. I let the strangeness of it all disappear.

Now I am trying to remember a few strange things that happened yesterday that gave me pause. They seem to have drifted off, out of my memory. They were very odd and I can remember stopping briefly after each incident to wonder at it but then the feeling quickly dissipated like fog, there for a moment and then gone like it had never been. I just do not remember what they were. Seems important now.

On to a rant where I will again ask how does one not see my very large car? It is huge, dark grey and I am not actively using my Romulan cloaking device. I had pulled up to a stop at an intersection where I was going straight and just to my right the cross street fed traffic turning right into my lane with only a yield sign. I had stopped well back of the yield sign so I would not block traffic and could help improve the flow into my lane from the feed. A car pulled up to the yield sign as the light in my lane changed to green. I waved him on ahead of me and easily pulled up behind him as the traffic slowly started forward. It was then that I noticed a white Mercedes convertible had not stopped or slowed down at the yield sign even though there was a line of cars blocking her progress into the lane we were in. She followed the car I had allowed in front of me as though she had rights and entitlement to not be courteous or obey a large, red, triangular YIELD sign.

 I assumed that she would stop or slow down. I was wrong. She plowed ahead and kept coming, I looked over at her and she was looking out her window to her right not even looking at the traffic. I waited a bit longer for her to come out of her coma and then BAM!!!! I slammed my hand down onto my horn. She looked straight ahead, hit her brakes and then looked over at me like I had done something to greatly offend her. Really?? She then tried to go ahead and get in front of me. Again I say REALLY???  This is a Lincoln Town car sister!! It eats little Mercedes for Lunch!!! We are Alpha! Get your skinny, pilates, yoga panted self, back behind me where you belong!  

But wait! There is more. I am cruising down a residential street doing the stated speed of 20 mph when sitting there at a stop sign is a minivan. You people should know by now how I feel about minivan drivers and their self-important sense of entitlement dragging their over scheduled, over indulged soccer clad kids around annoying us non mortals to no end. A sense of dread overcomes me and that elusive feeling that this is going to be an encounter of a personal nature overwhelms me. I remove my foot from the gas pedal in anticipation of her next move. I do not have a stop sign and as I said she did.  I have my hand poised over my horn and as I am about to cross the street at the intersection she pulls forward and makes her left turn. I lay my hand gently on the horn and press, and press, and press while applying pressure to the brake and what does this cow do?  She starts screaming at me, 

screaming. Her face is contorted into a look I can only define as horrific, her distorted mouth is moving in a frenzy of words I cannot even fathom. She has one hand on the steering wheel and the other making gestures at me from inside her foul cockpit. I stop. I look at her in my rearview mirror and contemplate turning around and following her to her final destination where I will be tempted to write her a scathing note about her lack of poise, grace, beauty, and driving skills. I drive on.

To the man who decided to not engage his brain before leaving home. Stop texting while you drive!!! Did you miss the memo that says it is not safe?

Well, I must soldier on I have duties to perform.