So I’m driving home…the same route I’ve taken for years.

 Muscle memory makes me flick the left blinker as soon as I enter the freeway because the far right lane spits me back on the feeder if I don’t. I indicated left and icy prickles coated my left cheek, spreading down my arm and through my left  hip. These chills were rather uncomfortable too. Not like the ones I get when Handel’s Messiah echoes through a midnight service on Christmas Eve but more like a thousand simultaneous stabs of a tattoo needle.

My ticking blinker fed my anxiety. I needed to GET OVER before being forced off the freeway.

I look over my left shoulder.

I’m clear.

Another wave of icy prickles hit me. Stronger this time.

“What?” I asked out loud.

I visualized a pair of hands pushing against my left side, like someone pushing hard against the pull door.

STAY, they warned.

The prickles popped again. Painful now.

WARNING!  they screamed

That second a large table flew from a pickup in front of me…one lane over. The table flew several feet 70 mph before smashing to the asphalt shooting sharp wood everywhere. Cars screeched and swerved dodging  flying debris and I watched the scene numbly, my blinker ticking in time to my disappearing prickles. No two ways about it: that table would absolutely have smashed through my windshield had I switched lanes.

I drove the rest of way in silence and gratitude. I’m not sure who saved me but I know they heard me say thank you because those chills feel nice.