The Traffic Jam
The weather was unseasonably pleasant the day the traffic jam started. The pale orange sky hosted streamers of thin milky clouds, the wind as still as dust. Only a moron could have caused an accident in this weather. But it wouldn’t take long to clear. A mere fender bender was probably all it was. This was the attitude the drivers held for the first fifteen minutes. There was hope, initially, that the traffic jam would not last long. But as the drivers watched the clocks on their dashboards continue to change, their imminent movement seemed less imminent, and they slowly began to swallow their optimism.
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Early on, some of the drivers pulled their cars into the median and pressed forward that way, expecting to merge later. A majority of these drivers drove pickup trucks, though occasionally a fuel-efficient car would follow suit, scandalously. The other drivers watched them zoom past. Didn’t these drivers in the median consider that everyone else also had plans they wanted to keep, homes that anticipated their returns? Yet, they played by the rules, as they believed people should.
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Immobile, the drivers imagined nasty things they could do to the ones abusing the median. Some considered chucking full soda bottles at the next car that went by. They gathered the bottles in their hands, ready to make a statement about fairness, eager for the opportunity to take a stand. But no one made any such statement, while those taking to the median were beginning to drive faster, as dry and impudent as ever.
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In an attempt to block the passers from passing them, some of the more motivated drivers pulled their cars partway onto the median. But their efforts were meager and uncommitted. They wanted to send a message to the passers, but they feared the drivers behind them would inch forward and steal their spots if allowed enough space. Their positions were still very important to them in the traffic jam’s earlier stages, queued for their escapes. They spent a good deal of time watching the drivers behind them in their rear view mirrors. Meanwhile, nothing was solved.
The other drivers soon discovered, however, to their great relief, that the passers had nowhere to go. Construction barriers cut off the median only a little further down the road. Gradually, the passers gathered one behind the other and turned the median into a fourth lane of traffic. That became, quite predictably, everyone else’s least favorite lane, though they did feel slightly vindicated in how the passers’ folly was exposed, even if it wasn’t by their own doing but merely the predetermined conditions of the road.
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***
Some bitterness carried over from the first hour. In the beginning of the traffic jam’s second hour, a man in a Sebring convertible, who had recently, resentfully, put his car’s top back up, turned to his wife and said, “I hope whoever got in the accident that caused this traffic jam is dead. At least then this will be worth my time.”
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“Oh, that’s terrible. You shouldn’t say things like that,” his wife told him, despite having almost the exact same thought at that exact moment.
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Was it terrible? The man in the Sebring had to consider this. In essence, he had wished death upon a stranger. “Well, he doesn’t have to be dead. But I hope he’s at least seriously injured. I hope there’s a reason for this.”
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Other drivers stared forward, their music turned down. They were trying to lock themselves inside their own heads. These drivers felt that to become frustrated was a failure. Human beings were made to endure more than a traffic jam. Besides, there was nothing to truly lash out against. Anger in a vacuum was simply childish. They watched the other cars sparkle like beetles in the now-setting sun and allowed themselves to wonder, very briefly, when the goddamn traffic would begin moving again.
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The third hour, some drivers exited their vehicles to stretch their legs and see what else they could discover about the traffic jam’s origins. But there were too many cars ahead and behind to know where exactly the traffic jam began or ended.
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A driver in the newly created fourth lane stepped out of his black Dodge pickup truck, which had a deer tied to its hood, and crossed the highway to take a piss in the woods. Some drivers tried to ignore him as he strode ostentatiously in front of their cars while several others watched him intently, wondering if this gave them permission. The man with the deer on his truck’s hood disappeared in the trees and reemerged several minutes later, grinning. “That feels better,” he said to no one in particular.
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Seeing this, more drivers began to exit their cars. They stretched their bodies and ambled across the road to the woods to relieve themselves. They knew their cars would still be there when they got back, they weren’t deluded. However, the drivers who remained in their cars resented the ones getting out of their cars. There was insolence in how the drivers outside their cars twisted their bodies and crackled their knuckles. They were troublemakers, the drivers outside their cars, tempting an unsympathetic fate.
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There was a funeral procession about a mile long that was stuck in the traffic jam. A woman in the limo that was at the front of the procession rolled down her window. She was newly widowed, dressed in all black. Her cheeks were bright red and matted with moisture, but she didn’t look sad, just very, very hot.
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“Would you please get back in your cars?” she yelled at a pair of drivers who were standing by the side of the road, chatting idly and smoking cigarettes.
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The smokers looked at her and quietly continued to smoke.
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“You’re making me nervous,” she continued. “We should all be ready, in case traffic moves again soon. We were supposed to be at the cemetery hours ago.”
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“Jeez, lady, chill out,” one of the smokers, a tall skinny boy with long orange hair and crooked teeth, said. He swept his hair out of his gray eyes. Once, he was a young kid with potential. He was smart as a student. His parents had been proud. But his potential never amounted to much. He lacked a certain conviction for success. Still, his parents claimed to be proud even now. It was very awkward for him.
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The other smoker, a large girl, spit in the dry yellow grass. “Lady, what’s the rush? Whoever’s in the back of that hearse ain’t going anywhere.”
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“That’s my husband you’re talking about!” the widow screamed. She was still very new at being a widow and wasn’t exactly certain how to behave like one yet.
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“You know,” the tall boy with the orange hair said, his cigarette pinched between his teeth, “if you think about it, we kind of deserve this. All our cars. Why do we need so many cars, man? We have all these cars and nowhere to put them.”
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“Shut up,” the large girl said. “Damn.” No one wanted to hear that.
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“Well it’s true,” the boy shrugged.
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“You people disgust me,” the widow said. “You’re nihilists. You smoke and you eat and you have no self-regard. You’re going to die, keeping on like that.”
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“We’re all going to die someday,” the boy said.
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“Yeah,” the large girl said. “Just ask your husband.” She laughed.
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The widow got out of the car and made a beeline for the smokers. The large girl flicked her cigarette to the ground and held up her fists. The boy watched, smoking.
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“I would love to kill you,” the widow said. “I really would.”
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“You think I’m afraid?” the large girl said. “Bring it, you flimsy bitch.”
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A state trooper approached them. The brim of his hat shaded his doughy forehead. “Let’s calm down now,” he said with his palms out. “No need for that.”
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The widow backed down and sobbed into her hands. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just been a very long day.” The large girl rolled her eyes and spit.
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“That’s all right,” the trooper said. He licked his lips and stared into the distance. “I’m going to go see what the hold up is.” Dipping his hat, he started walking toward the front of the traffic jam and gradually disappeared from sight.
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They never saw him again.
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***
Eventually, the orange sun faded to red and submerged beneath the horizon, as if the traffic jam was tucking it into bed. The night cast its long shadow on the cars. Those who had been walking around now returned to their vehicles and locked their doors.
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A child sitting in the back of his family’s purple minivan became frightened. In the dark he could see the faces of dozens of strangers around him, falling asleep.
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“I want to go home,” the child said with his blankie in his mouth.
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The child’s young father looked at him in the rear view mirror. “This is a good lesson to learn,” his father said cheerily. “We don’t always get what we want. Sometimes, something unexpected happens. How we deal with the unexpected is what defines us.”
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“What’s ‘defines’?” the child asked. A dark spot had appeared where he’d been sucking on his blankie and the child sniffed it. Is that smell me, he wondered.
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“It means who we are,” his father tried to explain. “As people,” he added.
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“I don’t understand!” the child said.
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“What I mean is . . .” But the father couldn’t explain exactly what he meant. “Like, what your character is, what shapes you, as a person.”
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“Shapes?” The child was on the verge of tears.
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“You’re just confusing him,” the child’s mother said to the child’s father. She had been asleep in the passenger seat moments ago, but she rarely missed an opportunity to criticize her husband, her husband thought gloomily.
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“Everyone, let’s just try to get some sleep,” the father said. Then he closed his eyes and pretended he couldn’t hear his child sniveling behind him.
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Some of the drivers got out of their cars to socialize. It was nighttime after all, and there was nowhere else to go. They’d temporarily given up on the notion that the traffic jam would resolve itself before morning. Meanwhile, some of the drivers emerged with bottles of alcohol, having once been on the way to a dinner or a party. They passed around wine, whiskey, beer, vodka in plastic jugs. There were very few cups, so those who wanted to mix their liquor with Hawaiian Punch or 7UP simply drank their liquor and their mixers at the same time, gargling their concoctions like mouthwash. Strangers mingled in the middle of the road and the sky sparkled above them. Pairs and trios split off and snuck away to their cars’ backseats. Even those who were generally not spontaneous in their regular everyday lives were taken with the novelty of the situation, driven to exercising their up-until-then deeply buried passions.
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The next morning drivers scampered back to their cars. Some were deeply ashamed. Some had made mistakes. Others were less guilty. They were able to chalk it up to the night. What else was there to do? But no one talked about what had happened.
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The day lurched forward while traffic remained at a standstill. The children in the cars were beginning to complain about hunger, as were many of the adults. Far fewer drivers had food in their cars than alcohol, but an attempt was made to feed the young with jerky sticks, potato chips, gummy bears, M&Ms, and trail mix. One car contained ingredients for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but supplies did not last long. Those without food went from car to car, asking for something to eat, and were met with varying degrees of reticence and discomfort.
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Hunger was accompanied by questions about the traffic jam’s nature. The drivers had been stuck in traffic for at least a day, maybe even longer, and they were beginning to suspect that its cause was more ominous than a mere car accident. They briefly turned on their radios, but there seemed to be no acknowledgment of the traffic jam whatsoever.
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“Maybe there was an attack,” suggested a frantic woman in a business suit. Her meticulous hairdo was coming loose, its strands lacking a reason to maintain cooperation.
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“I think we would have heard about that,” another woman said.
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“There could be a virus,” said the hunter with the now-rotting deer carcass on the hood of his truck. “I just saw this movie about a widespread pandemic. This movie posited that everything would shut down in an event like that. It would buckle under pressure and collapse. All our little gears would stop moving. The giant clock would die. There wouldn’t even really be a way to stop it. The government would probably come in and try to retain some order, but what would be the point?” The man gazed into his cupped hands as if he was carrying something extremely valuable and unique.
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“It could be a biological attack,” the businesswoman said. She covered her mouth and shook her head. Her hair became further undone.
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“You know what I secretly hope it is?” the hunter said. The others around him regarded him with trepidation, uncomprehending how any sane person could hope for anything so massive that might have caused this traffic jam.
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“I hope it’s zombies,” the hunter went on. “I’ve been planning my whole life for zombies. I got a shelter. I got guns, canned food. I’ve been training. Though, I probably shouldn’t be telling you all about this,” he added, suddenly less excited.
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“Zombies will never exist, as we’ve already imagined them too completely,” said another man. He was a professor of popular culture at a nearby university and had written several books on the subject. He wore small, round spectacles. His head was bald and he viewed this as a distinction of age and maturity. “Zombies resulted as our imaginations’ reaction to overpopulation, our fear of disorder and collapse, and our innate desire to bring violence upon one another without consequence, whether legal or moral.”
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“I don’t know about all that,” the hunter said. “I just know that when the zombie apocalypse does happen, I’ll die before I become a brain-sucker.”
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“Zombies, in regards to our collective imagination, consume all flesh, not just brains,” the professor said. “The brain-centric zombie is an archaic trope.”
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“Please stop talking,” the businesswoman screamed. The others had forgotten she was there and now that they were reminded they wished they hadn’t been.
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“Do you fear we’ve wandered into the uncanny valley à la The Twlight Zone?” the professor asked. “Is that where your hostility originates, from an unsatisfied notion that something is amiss and the inability to discern exactly what that something is?”
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“I’m missing work right now,” the businesswoman said. “I have important clients that need my attention. All this talk about zombies is pointless.”
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“We’re merely having a rhetorical conversation,” the professor assured her.
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“But how does that help me?” the businesswoman said.
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***
By the traffic jam’s third day, there was an emerging sense that action needed to be taken. Some of the drivers assembled to form committees to address the more pressing issues caused by the traffic jam. Specifically, it was decided that a committee should be created and tasked with discovering the traffic jam’s origins in a reconnaissance expedition. Those selected to be on this committee would have to hike to the front of the traffic jam then use their cell phone to report their findings to the rest.
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The problem was that no one wanted to join this committee. There was too much uncertainty. No one knew how long the hike would take or if they would be able to make it back to their cars in case traffic started moving again.
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They decided who would be on the committee by holding a rock-paper-scissors tournament. Initially, they could not decide whether they would throw down their hand-shapes on “three” or on “one-two-three-shoot,” so they took a vote. However, there was an even split, and the merits of each method were subsequently debated. Several hours later, no decisions had yet been made, and finally everyone just gave up.
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A general sense of hopelessness pervaded those stuck in the traffic jam. No one was coming to help them, and there was nothing they could do to help themselves. It became obvious that the traffic jam was operating on a level completely outside of them, or above them, as mysterious and magnanimous as the solar system’s orbit.
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The corpse in the hearse at the front of the funeral procession had begun to stink. The funeral director broached the topic of burial with the widow. The only humane solution was to bury her husband on the side of the road.
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“Please,” the widow said. “There has to be another way. We can’t leave my husband here. There will be people driving past his grave morning, noon, and night. How will he ever rest in peace with that racket?”
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“Not at this rate,” the funeral director said, then, noting his own callousness, which had developed over decades of laboring in death, added, “I just mean that there’s no sign that anyone will actually be driving on this highway anytime soon.”
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“I wish my husband was here,” the widow groaned. Her husband had been a determined, confident man who had steered their marriage like a fishing boat captain. The widow had had little opportunity to make her own decisions.
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“He’s still with you,” the funeral director said. “He will always be with you, until the day you join him in the afterlife. Or it helps some people to think so at least.”
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“Well it doesn’t help me right now!” the widow shrieked.
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The funeral director gathered his shovels from the back of the hearse and handed them out to the able men in the funeral party. Several additional drivers volunteered to help, including the tall orange-haired boy. “I’ve never buried anyone,” he explained. “It would be an interesting experience. It might show me a new dimension to death that I was unaware existed. Rarely does one have the occasion to bury strangers. Except if it’s your job of course.” He nodded to the funeral director.
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“As it is with anything else in life,” the funeral director said, “burials become exponentially less interesting with each time you do one.”
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Under the funeral director’s supervision, it took those digging just under an hour to fashion a proper hole. They propped the casket up on ropes, with several men on each side of the casket holding the ropes taut. In this manner, they carried the casket to the side of the road and lowered it into the earth. A young priest with faint stubble on his chin from not having shaved the last several days recited several prayers. The widow gazed into her husband’s freshly dug grave with her mouth open. Then the men shoveled the dirt onto the casket and filled the hole once more.
As soon as the burial was completed, a commotion erupted. Drivers were dashing back to their cars, and those standing around the grave could see that traffic was moving. It was a stuttering, glacial effort at first, but it was gaining momentum. They dropped their shovels and split for their parked cars. Engines revved throughout the river of cars.
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“What about my husband!” the widow cried. “We can’t just leave him here.” But then she noticed that her limo was pulling away and made a break for it, her black dress whipping at her legs, her black heels scraping against the asphalt.
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A wave of motion seized the traffic jam and rushed the cars forward. The drivers cheered and jammed on their gas pedals. The trees with which they had become so familiar zoomed by one after the other, galloping into the past like Muybridge’s horse. This newfound movement overjoyed the drivers. How they had once been captivated by a mysterious force, they were now stampeding toward the horizon, until an army of red lights bloomed brightly in the distance, and the distance became much closer. A screeching of brakes roared across the highway, a symphony of honking, followed by a larger, more sudden sound. Then there was nothing but smoke and dust.
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***
The pileup and its subsequent casualties defined the traffic jam thereafter. The drivers who survived spoke about the accident with a reserved mournfulness, shaken by the knowledge that they were still alive. They stumbled across the road, mumbling under their collective breath, wondering who or what they could blame if not themselves. There was nothing else to be done. They lacked the means for a proper excavation.
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But the pileup did have the contingent effect of garnering more attention for those stuck in the traffic jam, specifically from the government. Military helicopters arrived and hovered over the cars. They dropped aid packages containing bread, water, condensed milk, potatoes, cold chicken soup, bandages, and Tylenol—tiny red, white, and blue parachutes floating the supplies safely to the ground. “Please only take one aid package per car,” said a voice through loudspeakers attached to the helicopters. Of course there was no way to enforce this, as military personnel assigned to this mission were strictly forbidden from touching down on the highway. Therefore some drivers, especially those with families, grabbed up two or three aid packages, and supplies ran out within the first hour. The military retreated to restock but promised they would return.
Some viewed this government intervention as a hopeful sign that the proper authorities were now paying attention to their situation, bringing them one step closer to a resolution, when they could return home. Others, however, viewed the helicopters and the aid packages with doomsday skepticism. Governments rarely aided their constituents unless the situation was irreparable and irreversible, and only then to preserve their reputations. The rumor of a secret, grander doom circulated among the skeptics.
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Days passed, then weeks. More helicopters arrived with aid then vanished. The drivers were becoming increasingly angry and confused. This was noted by a traveling preacher who had been driving from town to town with his family in a white trailer before they became stuck in the traffic jam. What these people needed was some perspective, the preacher believed, so he constructed a platform with orange crates and surrounded himself with his mute-faced family. Stepping onto the platform, the preacher brought his bullhorn to his mouth and raised his other hand to the sky.
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“My brothers and sisters,” the preacher bellowed, “when we are faced with what we view as an impossible situation, an impossible punishment, a grandest punishment that’s larger than us with origins that do not clearly reveal themselves . . .” The preacher paused, surveying the crowd that had begun to gather, “A question comes into our minds and our hearts, that is, what could have caused this? But, my brothers and sisters, I have a suspicion. I suspect that this is not the right question to be asking. It seems pretty clear to me that the question we should be asking is not what caused this, but why. Deep in our heart of hearts, we know what caused this. That Being greater than ourselves, that Being which encompasses all life, which has bestowed upon us eternal love and devotion. We know what caused this traffic jam, my brothers and sisters. The question we should be asking ourselves is this: What did we do to deserve this? Be honest with yourselves, my brothers and sisters. No one is perfect. No one knows this better than me.”
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The preacher smiled and wiped his chin with a handkerchief, having been drooling, taken with the spirit. “No, my brothers and sisters, we are all sinners in our own way. Now, one person’s sin might seem like a small offense. Maybe it seems like one person’s sin matters very little in the grand scheme. However, when you begin to add us all up, add up all the sin that permeates our lives, the size and shape of that sin takes on demonstrative proportions. What do you think happened to Sodom and Gomorrah? Sure, one person’s sodomy and revelry might not seem like such a huge sin, though in the eyes of that Being I mentioned earlier, a sin is a sin, and when that sin is compounded into a million sins, when those million sins compose themselves into one grand sin, well, that Being begins to pay attention. That Being becomes wrathful with disappointment. That Being will not hesitate to act, to correct us, as only He knows how, with punishment.”
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Not everyone agreed with the preacher’s assessment of the traffic jam. Some drivers were so offended that they constructed another podium to tackle the issue, in more concrete terms, of how a traffic jam can form.
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So they invited a civil engineer to speak on the topic. “Congestion occurs when traffic demand meets or exceeds a highway system’s available capacity,” she said. “This traffic jam is what we would probably classify as ‘nonrecurring’ congestion. Simply speaking, this means that this traffic jam is unusual, though not impossible, congestion. In any case, congestion can be combated with proper construction, preservation, and operation of our roadway systems.”
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“That sure does us a whole lot of good!” shouted a skeptic in the crowd.
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“This problem is larger than we can individually imagine,” the civil engineer said. “There will not be any simple solutions. We need to cultivate a long-term viewpoint.”
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The drivers considered the long-term. What if the traffic jam never ended? They considered simply walking away, trekking through the woods back to civilization, where they could call a taxi. A taxi! They could be home before they knew it, really. But then, what if the traffic cleared while they were away? They couldn’t just leave their cars there. The aid packages drifted down from the sky, their small shadows slowly growing larger. Was this how their lives would remain, in a state of reliance and uncertainty, not knowing when they would ever move, when they would finally be saved, unable to move on without leaving something behind, something they would miss?
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END