Sunday, December 13, 2020

The Turn (a short story)

 A driver was driving a minibus along a major road at a good speed. In the back were 13 passengers. Up ahead the road curved a little to the left. “You know what,” said one of the passengers, “there’s a toll on this road up ahead, but there’s an off ramp just before this curve. It takes you to an amazing road that no one knows about. Where you travel as fast as you like, it’s free, there’s no tolls. In fact, they pay you to drive along it.”

“I don’t know,” said the driver.

“We should vote on it!” someone said. So they did.

3 people didn’t have a preference. 5 voted to keep on the on the road the other 6 voted to turn off onto the new road.

The driver threw his hands up and said someone else should take over driving. No one wanted to, but one of the passengers reluctantly climbed into the driver’s seat as they rolled along. She wanted to slow down to a moderate speed to mitigate problems. One section of the bus thought this was not slow enough, another wanted her to speed up to really hit this new road at a good pace.

Eventually, unable to please anybody, she gave up. One of the original cheerleaders for taking the right-turn stepped in. The passengers were still divided. Some questioned if there really was a turning and others said there really was, and it although it might be bumpier than they had originally thought, it would end up on an amazing road that would take them to their destination quicker than that stupid old road. Some wondered if they should recheck the opinions of the passengers given some seemed to have changed their minds, and this new road didn’t seem to be on the maps.

“No!” was the angry response from a vocal few. “We must turn!”

“Then at least slow down to mitigate a bad accident!”

“No!” Anything less than absolute faith in the turning was deemed as not believing in the van. In thinking that the minibus was not the greatest automobile on the road. The new driver put his foot down.

Suddenly a gap appeared in the fence. It was the turning. The minibus lurched off the road through an open gate into a field and immediately turned over.

A sign by the gate said “Welcome to Sunlit Uplands Farm. Beware of the Bull.”