It was almost 7:30 as
Marley raced out the door, her arms laden with handbag, camera bag and
briefcase. She jokingly referred to herself as a bag lady. She loaded the stuff
into the back seat of her car, got into the driver's seat, retrieved her water
bottle from her purse and placed it in the cup holder, then slipped the key
into the ignition of her Saturn Ion, cranking the car to go. It was
a quiet morning and no one was on the street. She usually saw Peggy from across
the street, or Lou from the corner house, out walking their dogs at this time
of day, so Marley figured they were running behind this morning. She chuckled
to herself as she pulled into the street, heading west toward Andrews Avenue. “Aren’t
we all running behind?” she said aloud.
Marley’s place was
located in an old Florida neighborhood with an eclectic mix of houses and
multi-family homes; McMansions from the recent real estate boom and suburban
homes from the 1940s mixed with larger cookie cutter houses built in the late
1970s. There was no direct route, so Marley had to wend her way through the
narrow streets until she reached the traffic signal at Andrews and 21st Court.
She looked north and south and saw no traffic at all, and, as she wondered how
long she’d have to wait for what she considered the longest light in Broward
County, she heard the click of the pedestrian crosswalk sign flashing red.
Twenty seconds later, the light changed to green.
Marley turned south onto
Andrews and drove her usual route … west on 13th Street, south on 7th Avenue,
then west on Sunrise Boulevard. After seven years of driving to and from work
in Davie, some 15 miles south and west of her home, she’d uncovered the
quickest and least stressful routes and kept them to herself. There were a few
things she was private about, and her travel route was one of those things. She
didn't need all those extra cars clogging up her journey back and forth to
work.
As she pulled up to the
traffic signal at Seventh and Sunrise, the first thing she noticed was the BP
station on the corner looked like it was closed. It was a 24-hour station and
that seemed odd for a Thursday. Again, there was no traffic. Marley looked east
before turning onto Sunrise, and as the car’s speed increased, she began to
realize something wasn’t right. There were no cars on Sunrise Boulevard at 7:40
AM on a weekday morning. There was no traffic coming from downtown Fort
Lauderdale. No buses. She turned on the radio, winding the knob to increase the
sound. It was on a light station and Katy Perry was singing about fireworks.
She ran the red light at
Powerline Road after she slowed to look both ways. No traffic anywhere. She pushed
her speed up to 65 and blew through the school zone’s flashing yellow light and
another traffic signal. The crossing guard was absent. No pedestrians on the
street. No cars in Burger King’s drive thru. When
she reached the I-95 overpass, she pulled into the left turn lane, put the car
in “park” and left it running while she got out. She walked across four lanes
of traffic and looked down onto I-95 southbound. Not a car or truck or
motorcycle anywhere, north or south bound. All she could hear was the traffic
signal changing. The airport located to the south was quiet and the skies were
empty. She knew there were planes taking off and landing all day long because
the airport served 23 million passengers a year. But, there were no planes
anywhere.
Tri-Rail
runs on the west side and parallel to I-95, and Marley watched, knowing the
trains ran every 20 minutes. She waited.
Three minutes passed and
no train. Marley walked back to her car and fished around in her glove box,
locating a pack of cigarettes. She found the lighter, lit her smoke and grabbed
her cell phone, walking back across the road. Still no train. Still no cars.
Anywhere. She stood and smoked and tried to decide if she was dreaming or if
this was real.
The heat of the sun, now
fully up, was real. She felt a light wind coming from the ocean to the east.
The smoke in her lungs as she inhaled was real.
She listened. The only
sound came from the traffic signals changing from green to yellow to red. She
remembered how quiet it had been when she sailed to the Dry Tortugas those many
years ago and said out loud, “What the fuck?” She looked at her watch. It was
now 7:53 AM and still no train.
She swiped her smart
phone and found her husband’s cell number. He was running the Swiffer around
the kitchen when she left and she hoped he wasn’t already in the shower. He
picked up on the second ring.
“Carl.”
“What?”
“Carl. Something’s
wrong.”
“What?” She could hear
the concern in his voice. Him thinking she’d been in a wreck.
“There’s no traffic.”
“Well. Good.” He waited.
She waited.
She turned and looked
north, to see if a train or vehicle was anywhere in sight. “Carl, there are no
cars on the road.” She took a breath. “
Anywhere.”
“What?” This time his
voice sounded like he didn’t understand what she said.
“There are no cars on
the road anywhere. I haven’t seen another car or person since I left the
house.”
She was waiting to wake
up.
He didn’t respond. Why
didn’t he respond? “Carl.”
“What?” Now he sounded
irritated.
“Carl, get in your car
and drive up here to Sunrise at I-95. Now.”
“I’m not dressed,” he
said. Carl is very particular about his appearance and would never dream of
leaving the house without being fully dressed.
“Carl, put on some jeans
and shoes and drive up here! NOW!” She felt the tension rising.
“Let me take a shower.”
“No! Now, Carl! NOW!”
Now she was yelling into the phone.
She heard the disconnect
and clicked her phone off. She went back to her car, got in, turned the air
conditioner on high and turned up the volume on the radio. The light channel
was now playing an old Simon & Garfunkle tune. “Sounds of Silence.” “How appropriate,” Marley muttered to
herself. She kept hitting the scan key. The Rolling Stones on the oldies
station. Then, silence on the Spanish station.
Silence on NPR. Beethoven on the classical music station. Silence, again, on another
Spanish station. She hit the scan button to return to the light music station.
Simon and Garfunkle were still singing. She waited. The song ended. She waited
for the commercial or the disc jockey to give a traffic report or something.
Just silence.
“I must be dreaming. This can’t be real.”
She pulled out another
cigarette and fired it up. She rolled the window down a bit and located her
brother’s phone number on her cell. She hit the call button, inhaled the smoke
and waited. It went to voice mail.
She hit the end button
and searched for her office number. She hit the call button and put the phone
to her ear. The phone rang five times and then she heard the answering machine
with Cindy’s voice. “You have reached …” She hung up.
She got back out of the
car and walked back across the road to the overpass rail. She tossed her
cigarette down onto I-95 and watched it land on the road below. She watched as
it rolled along the black top, drifting on the road, alone.
She heard Carl coming
down the road before she could see him. His silver SUV emerged from the weeping
fig trees that lined Sunrise Boulevard and then, just as quickly, he was
pulling up behind her car. He shut the engine off and got out. Marley could
tell by the look on his face that he was as weirded out by this as she was.
Clearly he had done what she told him. He was wearing jeans and a clean white
tee shirt and his Birkenstock sandals. And, he hadn't taken a shower yet.
“What the hell’s going
on?” he said as he moved across the asphalt toward her.
“I don’t know,” she said
quietly.
He came to stand beside
her. “Something’s happened, Carl. I don’t know what, but something has
happened. Something really bad.”
They stood together on
the overpass, looking down onto the eight lane highway which was usually
bumper-to-bumper at this hour. “Have you been smoking?” he asked.
“Carl. Who cares?
There’s no one here but me. And, you.”
“I thought you quit.”
“Carl! Pay attention!”
She got so frustrated with him because he always focused on the wrong
thing. “Where are all the people? Huh? Where are the cars
with people in them, Carl?” She spread her arms and turned from side to side to
get him to look around.
He looked puzzled, just
as he looked when he saw her playing with her dolls. She looked up into his
face, forcing him to look at her. “Where did they go?”
Carl walked away from
her, back toward his car. “I’m going home,” he said, and got into his car,
backing up to pull around her vehicle. She could tell by his actions that he
was pissed. He always got pissed when he thought she’d been smoking. As
she walked back onto the road towards her own car, he made a u-turn at the
signal, swerved around her in the middle of the road and sped down the road
heading east, disappearing into the weeping figs lining the road.
Marley got into her car
and followed Carl's path. As she made the u-turn to go back east, she felt it
in her gut. Things have changed. And, this isn’t a dream.
