Blessings
By Contributing Author/Artist Carl Franz
Illustration by Carl Franz
The distant mountains of Scotland's Cairngorms National Park were already blending in with the dusk as I drove north towards Aberdeen.
Only the starkly contrasting white peaks stood out, cutting a jagged profile into the western horizon. The snowline had slipped significantly lower since my last business trip, promising a good skiing season ahead at Aviemore.
 
Fortunately my route from Dundee along the east coast was still free of snow. Until then the bone-chilling mist fondly named the haar had the coast all for itself. I could already see it begin drifting in on the sea breeze across the broad dual carriageway. It gathered there, preparing for another slow prowl deep inland.
I passed the turnoff for Kirriemuir, the birthplace of J M Barrie, author of ‘Peter Pan’.
As Montrose also slipped by I reckoned with just another sixty miles before I was home.
 
Ahead, the grey shape of a lorry loomed out of the mist. The doubled up wheels were throwing out a mess of wet salt and grit. 
From previous experience I knew getting too close was not a good idea. My headlights and windscreen would quickly smother in a briny paste if I hung too long behind him.
The road was still clear. A dual carriageway providing plenty of room to pass. What more could I ask for?
There was no reason to wait any longer and risk running out of screen wash.
Despite that, something felt wrong. I checked the mirror again. Nothing – not even a glimmer of far distant headlights. The road was still invitingly clear. What on earth was I waiting for?
Still the feeling persisted. My hands stubbornly held the wheel straight and steady, refusing to make the manoeuvre.
 
I knew this feeling. It was the same feeling that had saved my life many years ago.
I was an apprentice electrician back then. Just a routine job at a local power plant.
The operator patted me on the shoulder with his plump paw. He was a large genial man.
“Okay, everything is switched off, in you go”, he said, nodding towards the narrow access hatch leading into the electrical cabinet.
Not a job for a bear like him with a generous paunch hanging over his belt, but perfect for a skinny teenage apprentice.
 
Once inside, I saw that even if he had made it through the opening, he would never have been able to squeeze past the bristling array of nuts and bolts clamping the electrical conductors together.
The three copper conductors were designed to carry nearly five hundred volts each. As if that wasn't deadly enough they were arranged in three separate phases.
Simply put, I had stepped into a cage with not just one mean hungry tiger but a fierce trio of beasts.
  
My task was however, very simple. All I had to do was unbolt one damaged section of conductor plate and replace it with another.
There was no sense in standing around any longer than necessary, confined in a hot, dusty cabinet. But even so, I simply stood there. My hands refused to move. Something felt wrong. Very, very wrong.
I backed carefully away.
 
Once outside, a quick check confirmed my gut feeling. The conductors were live and at full frying voltage.
I learned an important lesson that day and considered myself very lucky. I just put it down to luck that I was still alive.
Now that same feeling of wrongness had returned. But this was no cage of lethally high voltage. This was an open road and a simple routine matter of overtaking a lorry. Something I had done a thousand times before. So what was wrong?
I was still asking myself that question when it happened.
 
I watched helplessly as the articulated trailer inexplicably lashed out sideways. It slewed across the overtaking lane and then slid neatly back again into place.
I would have been alongside it at the exact moment it swung out and most certainly been swatted off the road like a fly.
I reasoned the driver probably missed a gear. The unladen trailer, being too light to grip the wet road, had become a near jack-knife situation.
I had been lucky. No, more than that, I knew I had been warned; protected.
 
When I turned off towards the hills on the last leg of the journey the haar thinned. The last of it then finally washed away in a light shower. I relaxed and cracked open the window to take in the wonderful forest-scented air. The clean refreshing rain spattered on my face. 
Only a few miles more and I would be back to my snug little cottage sheltering between the hills on the other side of Inverurie.
 
The rain petered out as I reached the top of the last hill. There the full moon unexpectedly burst into view.
The night was suddenly shot through with her stunning bright face.
Then I saw something I didn't think was even possible. I brought the car to a halt, unable to drive further. Not through any life-saving premonition this time though, but through sheer glorious wonder.
Around that shining globe hung heaven’s colourful choir of seven.
And my life was blessed once again that evening; this time with a moonbow.
About the Author:

Author and artist Carl Franz lives in Yorkshire, UK.
He regularly contributes to his local magazine 'Howden Matters' and also features in various websites and magazines.