Welcome to part II of the Christmas special. If you haven’t read part I already, you can find it here.
Driving home for Christmas
Part II
Previously on “Driving home for Christmas”. Eduard is on his way home after a long day at work. So are Anika and Micheal, they were at the Christmas market together with Anika’s friend Sophie, who greeted her live in the radio. As the snow fall gets heavier and heavier, Eduard sees an orange alternating light at the far end of the road.
…Having reached a traveling speed back in the low two digit range again, the corner, which was not more than a little bend closed in at the end, but really wan’t that challenging for a Porsche. As the intensity of the orange light increased, he sensed nothing of the upcoming situation. “I am coming closer!” Relaxed, Eduard uses the moment to adjust the climate control in his car. It started to get pretty cold these days, but normally he doesn’t even wear a jacket while driving. He likes the movement of his shoulders, which a jacket was messing up completely. As he started to regret this fact about his way of driving, he finally saw the source of the orange light he has seen for the last couple of minutes. Indeed, it was a car from the winter service, well actually, there were three cars. The first one moving slowly in the right lane, while another one was driving at least 500 meters down the road, coming to a standstill. The third one of the service cars, already far down the road, seemed to stand at its position all the time, while he could see some other colors, mixing up the orange light in the distance. “There must have been an accident or something, it looks like the road is closed.”
Eduard seem to doesn’t care much about his missing jacket anymore. Relentlessly he starts to force on the infotainment system, which he had killed earlier in order to prevent the Christmas song torture. As the wide screen springs back into life, immediately a dark red color seems to undermine his current position on the map. He reads, “Road closed“.
Back in the Renault, the evening news are getting disrupted rather unprofessional, as the commentator starts to talk immediately after the “gong” sound with a high pitched voice.
“This is radio three with a traffic warning for the A3 in eastern direction. There has been an accident with multiple cars. The road is closed for now, please take the exit at km 48, if you can not leave the Autobahn anymore, please think about setting up a rescue alley for the emergency services who want to arrive at the scene.”
“Is this us?” Anika asks in shock. She was never really good on the orientational side of life, but something told her that she was heading east.
“Yes, this is us, unfortunately! And we have already missed the exit. There will be no other exit for the next 10 km.“
Even more carefully now, Anika steers her car through the night, while increasing her grip at the steering wheel by at least 40 percent. The lines of the road, which she uses so often as an orientation have been disappeared underneath a very thick layer of snow.
“Everything will be fine!“, Michael throws out a couple of seconds later, trying to break the silence in the car once again. It has been their third date and so far, he liked her a lot, maybe even too much already.
As the Renault tries to find its way through the snow desert that was laying in front of them, the orange light appeared in their visual field as well. Hoping not to see this appearance until the next exit some more km’s down the road, they both accepted their destiny rather quickly.
“I hope nothing serious has happened.” Anika says out aloud while decreasing the speed even further. Having heard more than enough horror stories about collisions at the end of traffic jams, she was always very careful to keep enough distance to the car in front. Well, today, this wasn’t really an issue, due to the fact, that there was literally no other car in front of her for miles.
Standing at the end of the traffic jam for almost 3 minutes now, Eduard loses his seatbelt and reaches out for the jacket he has put on the backseat before starting to drive home. “That could be a long night“, he tells himself and starts to switch off any unnecessary equipment in the car. As the ambient light fades away, the darkness from the outside enters the sports sedan rather quickly. Well, this action had a positive effect on his visual field, which started to increase directly after switching it off, but Eduard seems to do not care much about things like that, anyways. “Thank god my tank is almost full.” Eduard is always afraid about that, running out of fuel. Of course, it never happened to him, and it was never even close, but still, as soon as the gage is close to the half empty mark, there seems to start an internal process in his mind that automatically pilots him to the next fuel station for a refill.
“And this is it, seems like there is the end of the traffic jam.“
“Yeah you are right, Anika, but have you already seen what I have seen?” Michael tries to sound a little bit mystical.
“No! What? What is there?“
“You really haven’t seen?“
“That’s not funny! Tell me!“
“Oh, I will, but first, you need to figure this out on your own.” Michael ends his sentence with a laugh.
“Idiot!“, Anika replies with a laugh as well. She really started to like this guy. Well, while their first date was more a disaster, then anything else, to be honest. Today, Michael made a very good impression on her again. He was smart, funny and just a normal guy. He had a good job and already a house. In the words of Anika’s mum, the perfect man. She advised her to take him, as long as he will be available.
Slowing down underneath the 30 km/h barrier, Anika immediately realized the thing, Michael was talking about the whole time.
“No way! No fucking way!” Anika starts to fall into a deep laugh. “There is no fucking way! Is this really the Porsche dude?“
In the left lane, a silver monster of a Porsche was parking at the end of the traffic jam.
“Hell yeah! It is!” Michael screams out loudly without being able to hold back his high pitched laugh, he prevented all day from appearing.
“That is called karma, bitch!“, Anika yells out, while rolling up right next to the Porsche guy.
“It’s gonna be a cold night, I hope we do not need to wait too long.” Michael replies, as he removes his seatbelt and tries to make it more comfortable in his passenger seat. “Do you have some snacks? Or a blanket for me?” He adds rather quickly, and exchanges a look with his female driver.
“Of course I have, right next to the bottle of Champaign and the caviar!” Anika responses, and adds, “But maybe you can ask our neighbor over there, I am sure he has some delicacies somewhere in his car“.
“Actually this is a pretty good idea, I bet he has a massage function in his seats as well.”
“Well, in case you haven’t heard, this car has such a feature, too!” Anika hears her self saying out loud, while asking herself what the fuck she has just done.
Michael realized the offer not directly, which made it even more embarrassing for her. “But anyways!” Anika disrupts the silence. “Should I turn off the light to save some fuel, there is not much left anyways.” “Not yet, wait until some other cars will stand behind us.” “Yeah, you are properly right.“
Back in the Porsche on the left, Eduard has reached for his MacBook Pro and was already completely dived back into his work. Tomorrow was Christmas eve, as everyone knew, therefore he wanted to send out some e-mails before the e-mail software would properly prevent the mails from going trough and rather store the mails somewhere until the holidays will be over. “Oh, hell no!” To his surprise, or better, not his surprise, Eduard hasn’t invested a single thought about the fact, where he was currently trying to send out a mail. Looking to the left, trees, looking to the right, a white car and behind, trees, lot’s of tress. “Damn it!“. But anyways, Eduard has a lot of other things he can do offline. Pressing the seat adjustment memory button number two at the door next to him, his steering wheel moves instantly to the front, while his seat was moving in the opposite direction. Having done a lot of work sessions in his car already, he had memorized that position years ago when he had collected the car.
“Look at that! Now he is working in his car!“, Michael comments from his sun lounger kind of seating position. “I like that guy!“, he adds, and lets his glance follow the silhouette of the car.
“How can you like that idiot?” Anika fires back. “He is a total dick! He thinks that he is something better!“
“Why do you think that?” Michael wonders, following the car back to the front until he reaches Anika’s forehead.
“He must be! Don’t you remember how he literally pushed me to the side?“
“But anyways, let’s do not talk about him. Lets rather talk about us“, Michael thinks, but says nothing.
“Can you increase the temperature a little bit?“, Michael finally says after a short break that felt more like an eternity for him.
“Sure, why not!” Anika replies and reaches out for the adjusting body in the center console. “But we need to be careful about our fuel management. There is really not that much left.“
Michael looks Anika in the eyes, “Well, in case we need to make a cut back, I will consider changing to the dark side over there!“, Michael says meaningfully, will trying to stay as serious as possible and pointing in the direction of the spaceship next to them.
“Don’t even think about that!” Anika replies enthusiastically and adds “The force you need to use, the side you should not change!” Well, it wasn’t as perfect as Master Yoda would have said it, but Michael got the joke.
“Finish the December report, checking the bank accounts, calling Jenny and ask about the current status of the project.“, Eduard reads out aloud the tasks he has still left on his to do list before Christmas. “For how long am I standing here already?” Eduard checks the time on his watch, he is wearing on his left wrist. Only 20 minutes have been gone. “Why is there no further emergency car arriving?“, he wonders and moves his head to the left side, waiting for the next car that would pass by. But even that seems to be something that will not happen after all. “Since the moment I am staying here, how many cars have I seen?“, he wonders. “Not a single car! There must have happend something serious!”
To be continued next week in Part III
See you next time!
dream | act | succeed 
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