Contretemps

 An unforeseen event that disrupts the normal course of things.    Also the name of a poem from English Lit.

One morning on the drive to school, top down in my red Miata, with the stereo blaring John Lee Hooker's "I'm Bad....like Jesse James", I witnessed a solitary figure rooted by the side of the blacktop. His silhouette was awaiting the bus that picks up Navy yard workers as he drew deeply on his cigarette. It was six am and nippy.

As I blew past him at 50 miles an hour our eyes locked for a split second just as Hooker was singing, "I'm Bad!". In that instant I became the solitary stranger. He became me. A millisecond later I was on down the road and he was still frozen, shrinking in my rear view mirror. We had exchanged lives for one fascinating moment. I had tried his; he had assumed mine. Then we switched back to our pre-established routes. As I drove on down the road the lingering smoke....the pungent piercing smell of scorched tobacco leaves remained trapped in the open cockpit.