Trucks hate me.
Specifically, those flat-faced delivery trucks. Six months ago, I was almost killed by one. I jumped out of the way right before it hit me. I didn't even notice it, but my body was moving before I realized the danger. My heart was pounding as the truck plowed past me, no horn blaring or brakes squealing. It ran straight ahead, full speed and took the next right. I stared at it, the sound of my heart heavy in my ears, pounding like I had sprinted a mile. What the…? Was the driver looking at his phone? With that thought I glanced guiltily at the phone in my hand, the reason I wasn't paying attention as I crossed the street.
Considering myself lucky, I went on with my day, happy that I had survived and I now had a cool story to tell. I was on the edge of death again and I came out of it unscathed, again. I love this feeling. One miscalculation or slip and, BOOM! your dead. It gets the blood flowing. You know you're alive.
You may be thinking to yourself 'This guy sounds like an adrenaline junkie.' You are a hundred percent correct. Though, it's not just any rush that gets me going. What I love is extreme parkour. Yes, I love to run, jump, climb, and dodge around dangerous environments. Parkour courses, BORING! I want the possibility of falling into a hole that drops you thirty feet. I want the risk of being run through with a rusty length of rebar.
I do my parkour in condemned buildings. The more buildings together, the better. I have a group of friends that have been together since early childhood, when we all took gymnastics together. The gymnastics didn't last, but when we found parkour, it was over for us. When we meet up, we'll play tag for hours in some hazardous group of buildings. We even plan trips just to go to some condemned section of a city, so we can have a new playground.
Yes, I have had plenty of broken bones, scrapes, cuts, and many tetanus shots. It's all worth it. I keep myself in the best shape possible just so I can run like a mad man.
But you didn't come to listen to me ramble on about my favorite past time (seriously though, parkour is life). You're here to hear about the crazy trucks. Two weeks after the first truck tried to kill me, another one made an attempt. I was walking across the street to visit my parents. They live in a nice, quiet community. I wasn't distracted this time and a delivery truck takes a sharp turn around the corner. I backed up to let it pass and the thing turns to hit me. I get out of the way. This truck takes out the neighbor's mail box and dings their car before continuing up the road.
I stare after it, realizing that that thing tried to kill me. No, the driver tried to kill me. Was there even a driver? No, there had to be a driver. Trucks don't just drive themselves.
"Hello, yes, someone just tried to kill my neighbor's son and hit my car…" I look up to see the neighbor coming out of his house, talking into his phone. This is going to be a hassle. I hate talking to the police.
After it was all settled, I couldn't shake the feeling that no one was driving that truck. As much as I told myself that trucks don't drive themselves, the feeling wouldn't go away. The next day, I was eating at a small café, sitting by the window, scrolling through my phone when I suddenly felt someone glaring at me. I adjusted my shoulders and then looked around. No one in the café was looking at me.
With a shake of my head, I looked out the window. A delivery truck was slowly driving by and I knew it was the truck that was glaring at me. The freaking truck! I knew it wasn't the driver, because he was having a fit, yelling and hitting the steering wheel. I was at a loss at how a truck could glare, but I knew that was what was happening.
As I left the café, I am thinking about this revelation. How could trucks, an inanimate object, glare? It seemed impossible but there was no other way to describe what I was feeling. As I walked past the last building on the block to cross the street, I heard an engine start. I looked in that direction and froze. There was one of those delivery trucks parked about twenty feet away, and it's engine had started, yet there was no one in the cab. I started to step onto the road and the truck jerked forward into the center of the road. I hopped back onto the curb and the truck stopped. I put my foot out above the blacktop and the truck jumped forward a foot. I put my foot back down and glared at the truck. It stared right back. How am I going to get out of this? I knew this thing was just waiting for me to try to cross. Why did these trucks want to kill me?
I glanced behind me and saw a group of teenage girls walking toward me. I stepped aside, watching the truck. It didn't make any movement toward the girls as they stepped onto the black top. I hurried behind them. The truck crept forward a couple of feet but seemed hesitant. It didn't move again as I crossed the street, and the engine turned off once my feet got onto the sidewalk. I stopped looking at the truck and looked back at the girls walking away. Why did it stop? It must only want to kill me. This is very disturbing.
The trucks were after me, but why? It didn't make any sense. I just need to be more careful about the way I do things now.
I never knew that there were so many ways to get around my city. The number of backroads, residential roads, alleys, footpaths, and other ways astounded me. If I could take a path that didn't have much delivery truck traffic, I would take it. If I had to be in those areas where there were more trucks, I would try to keep close to groups of people. I got a lot of strange looks from people as I walked close to them. Luckily, I only had to stay close to them as I crossed the street and then I let them get ahead of me. Only once or twice did anyone say anything to me.
I lived like this for almost half a year. Keeping my eyes out for trucks and taking longer routes to avoid them. Unfortunately, I couldn't avoid them all. There were a few times that no one was around to cross the street with. A truck would be down the street, and its engine would turn on. I started sprinting across as fast as I could. The truck would leap forward, trying to hit me. Once, the truck was already on and was moving right as I started sprinting. It missed me by six inches. The driver of the truck came running down, very distressed as the vehicle had run into a building, crashing through a window and destroying the display. These life-or-death dashes really got my blood pumping. I think I'm starting to enjoy this. It's just as good as parkour.
I had to shake my head after that. I was enjoying the thrill, but it would get me killed if I started to look for opportunities to dodge these trucks. They were trying to kill me and, the more I did it, the more likely I would make a fatal mistake.