Road

We were warm, glad to be warm after a long day of riding in the car going north on PCH on a freezing day in the middle of March.

The road was wet from the rain.
The rain was heavy at times, slapping the windshield in heavy globs, the wipers barely able to keep up.
We could barely see the road before us and once, who knows how it happened...

...that was traveling in the opposite direction.
We swerved and they swerved and by luck and luck alone we did not collide.
We were more careful after that. Rudy was driving at that time, not me, and not Doyle.
Doyle said we should pull over and pray to the god of whatever for sparing our lives.
I said we should pray or give thanks on behalf of the blue van also. Rudy said he would take care of that one since it was he who had caused the near collision in the first place.
Doyle said that, no, it goes back to the rain, that it was the rain's doing; it was the rain that had caused the near collision.
I said I disagreed. It was not the rain. It was Rudy. Rudy looked at me and laughed. But I was serious.
Doyle drove after that and then me and then finally we let Rudy drive, but only after the rain had stopped suddenly and completely.
We sat, later, in a coffee shop and quietly watched the sun breaking through the clouds and glistening on the cold sea.