HIYA!
Yesterday, after the rain'd stopped, as I was walking along highway 317 I heard a phone ring. There was nobody around and it wasn't my phone. I looked down to my right where the sound was coming from, in the tall grass and brush that had been recently cut to about 6 inches tall. There was a flash and the sound of a telephone. I bent down to pick it up and was surprised. What in hell is a phone doing on the ground next to a highway?! I said hello but couldn't understand what the other person was saying. So I laughed and said, "Look, I'm a Westerner, I'm walking on highway 317. I heard a phone ring, picked it up and now we're talking. I don't know who's phone this is. Maybe you know. If you give me the owner's phone number I'll call them." Then after the noise from the road died down, or the other person spoke up, whatever, I could hear him better. He was about 15 kms away and said he'd come to get the phone. I told him approximately where I was.
A little while later a guy drove up from the same direction that I was coming from. I walk against traffic so he was on the other side of the road. He opened his door, motioned for me to come, I pointed to the phone in my pocket, made a gesture of talking on the phone, and walked toward him. I told him I had his phone and pulled it out of my pocket and put it on the passenger's seat.
He asked where I was going and I told him. He offered me a ride. But I declined, saying thanks but I'd determined to walk. He asked if I had money for a bus and started to reach into his pocket, I think to pull out some money for me to take a bus. I told him I did and said again that I wanted to walk. So after he understood and accepted, he asked why I was giving him the phone! This wasn't the owner of the phone. He just wanted to give me a ride!!
I chuckled, said thanks, shut his door and he took off.
About five minutes later I stopped at the roadside to get a snack. Banana fritters. Love 'em. It's been a while since I had any and there they were so I had a few. Very nice. I was sort of feeling like I wanted a rest but since the owner of the phone hadn't arrived and I told him I'd be on the road, and, the battery on his phone had just died a few minutes earlier, I decided to stay on the road and not find a place to rest.
A few minutes later another truck, this time from the direction that I was expecting him to come from, approached, pulled around, the passenger opened her window, and motioned for me to come. This time I wasn't going to just assume that it was the owner of the phone. I could have given away their phone just minutes earlier and not have know a thing.
They seemed perplexed. Why was I walking to a destination that would take days to walk to when I could take a bus and be there shortly? Nobody seems to understand this. Can't say that I really understand it either except to say things like I have had this feeling now for seven years that I want to walk so I'm walking. And other more trifling reasons.
Funny. I could have been anywhere when that phone rang. I could have been ten feet away and probably not have heard anything. I was right there, right where that phone was when it rang. And it may have been the last time the phone rang because the battery died just after I talked with the owner.
Of course, I had to be somewhere, so, you could always argue that there's nothing strange here, nothing like fate, or destiny, or God's hand, or any of these things. Pure chance. I don't care to declare any deeper reasons. Just neat that things turned out as they did.
Troy.
30 °C
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