Diversion
A shortcut to a 50th birthday party takes a harrowing turn
STORY
Daniel entered the coordinates on the GPS, and after a few seconds of calculating the distance, the voice from the machine estimated an hour of travel. He thought this would be his usual route through highways, with plenty of places to stop for food, or to use the restroom if needed. He checked his hair in the rear-view mirror and ran his fingers through a loose fringe that tickled his forehead. “His Superman curl,” as he referred to it. In an hour he’d be reunited with childhood friends that he’d known since the kindergarten sandbox. Lifelong friends that let life lead them different ways until someone’s spouse cooked up a surprise fiftieth birthday party.
Five minutes into the drive, the GPS piped through the speakers and gave a directive that promised a more fuel efficient and faster route. Daniel would be able to shave off a few minutes of drive time, which was still enough to debate the probabilities of what to say to the four best friends. Would he open with a joke, a hug, or a handshake fist-bump combo? What if things were awkward, or even worse, what if they had grown apart? He mentally flowcharted different scenarios in the few minutes it took to reach the first detour.
“Hmm, this is new,” he said aloud. He flipped the visor down to shield his eyes from the sunset, squinting as far as he could to see if there was anything on this road of interest.
Nope, just fields.
Might have been rice, wheat, or cotton. He didn’t know. It had been so long since he dealt with farming that he was content with not knowing the details. He checked his rearview mirror, no one behind him. “Heh—why would there be?” he said. The road was paved narrow for two-way traffic, mostly to accommodate farm equipment and navigating from one field to the next.
Daniel glanced at the navigation console. “45 minutes left. Not bad.” He turned up the music and ran the windshield wipers to swipe off the myriad array of bugs splattering on the glass. The night sky settled in when the first turn came. It was a sharp 10 mph turn right and a few hundred feet later a sharp turn left. He flipped on the high beams, but the visibility was narrow and only revealed tall stalks of whatever needed harvesting. As soon as he rounded the corner, there was another tight left and one annoying right.
The navigation showed a U-shaped bend in the road to bypass an irrigation ditch. Once the road straightened out, there was a single bright light in the distance. Perhaps several miles away. It was bright enough to be glaring and irritating. Daniel squinted his eyes.
Something shot across the road, from left to right. His fingers wrapped themselves tight around the steering wheel. “Oh shit, what was that?” He peered towards the passenger side of the car and there was a brown rabbit on the roadside. The ears on the creature were pinned back as it entered the thick tall vegetation.
Suddenly the paved asphalt was replaced with gravel across a narrow dirt road. Single lane. “I hope no one comes from the other direction.” He rolled down windows to see if the road had a shoulder, or anything to pull onto in case of on-coming traffic. There was no respite, it was all irrigation ditches that ran parallel to the road. For a second, he thought it would be an interesting game of chicken, not knowing if he’d be brave enough to gamble going with anything or anyone out here, in the middle of nowhere.
He slowed from 45mph to 25mph as the gravel too dissipated and was replaced with the imprinted tracks of a caterpillar tractor, which set his tires into a frenzied rumble. His seat vibrated with such ferocity that his teeth chattered, his fingers white knuckling the steering wheel as the dark, oppressive fields closed in around him. “Good thing I’m alone... I think.” The light ahead grew in luminescence yet seemed farther away. This made Daniel check the mirrors again. Then he looked at the dash screen and saw that his phone still had a cellular signal. “Okay, at least I’m not in the Twilight Zone.”
Daniel continued driving with the high beams on. It didn’t seem like there were any cars in either direction. He glanced at the car’s gauges to check the air in the tires and to see if there were any check engine warnings. “The last thing I need, in a place like this, is to break down and possibly end up dead before sunrise.”
What would the guys think if I just vanished out here? Would they even care after all these years? The distance between us felt vaster than these empty fields. He shook his head. “Focus on getting out of here.” He slowed down even more as the ridges in the road became intense. His fingers couldn’t pinch and zoom out on the navigation map because of the interruption.
The GPS estimated thirty minutes of travel time left. The tractor tracks on the road faded and asphalt returned a short while thereafter. “Finally,” he said. His fingertips pinched the screen and zoomed out. He could see the thicker line. It was the highway. He’d be there in fifteen minutes, and then another fifteen minutes on civilized roads until arrival.
The curves in the road had come and gone, along with the wildlife and the shadows from damaged buildings or equipment. One thing remained constant: The stinging from the very white and bright light. Except, something was different. The light was no longer retreating. It was moving forward as the car got closer to it.
“It’s probably just some farmer’s floodlight, pointed in the wrong direction,” he said. He lowered the sun visor to see if that would help. It didn’t. Daniel was still squinting to see ahead. The car slowed to twenty mph. He held up his hand across his eyes and used the small gap between fingers to see ahead. The glare was gone. Time to focus on the prize.
The size and intensity of this pure white light was beyond outrunning, Daniel reasoned. He was going to arrive at the source in a minute or two. The inside of the car was lit up, despite the night sky and tinted windows. He felt like he was on stage with a giant spotlight on him. There was a feeling of warmth. He held his fingers up to the air vents and it was blowing cool air. And just like that, it was gone. The car was dark and the cool air from the vents chilled his skin. He stopped the car, checked the rearview mirror. “No way,” he said.
Daniel stepped out of the car to get a better look at the source of the antagonistic light. It was an industrial halogen floodlight mounted on a rusted grain silo... Behind the light was a heavy equipment storage facility. Daniel shook his head in disbelief and returned to his car.
On the horizon, Daniel could see the traffic moving north and south on the highway. Another glance at the GPS info. Three miles to the highway, and twelve minutes to arrival. “Fuck yeah.” His foot pressed the accelerator, until cruise control kicked in. With a final check of the rear-view mirror, Daniel saw his car’s taillights shine red on the last of remaining crop growth. Once on the highway, Daniel set the cruise control and let the taillights lead him into town. The darkness was behind him, but as he rehearsed his opening joke, he realized the real unknown was waiting for him at the party.
🎧 Companion Audio: Themes & Hidden Threads
This story is fully human‑written. The audio below is an optional AI‑generated commentary created after the story — a kind of literary companion that highlights themes, symbolism, and patterns readers might enjoy exploring.
Author’s Note
This is a true story from June 2025. The timeline is modified from the second paragraph because this happened after the party—on my way home. The drive to the party was fine, except my anxious thoughts about getting there—those were authentic.
The Story Behind the Story
This story came to be during a writing session with the weekly writing group from Dominican University of California.
The prompt words were Susurration, Murmuration, Realization, Visitation, & Frenzied
I was nostalgic when I took the shortcut onto Hwy 45 instead of taking Hwy 20 to Hwy 99, because I could drive past the field where I took out electricity for an entire region at two in the morning—that’s another story.
I had only taken this road to its end once when I first received my driver’s license. Those were the young-n-dumb days, and I had driven it in the daytime, I didn’t even remember where I’d end up. If you follow Hwy 45, there is no real way to Hwy 99 while heading south bound. Click to go there
There was a period time where I was working at rice processing facility doing twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week. \
I had a buddy approach me and offer me a ten-hour night job operating a Caterpillar tractor to disc a field. This tractor had those army tank treads and only operated in third gear. I digress; that’s another story too.
When I checked out the GPS, there was a way I could get to highway 99, but that route would still give me forward momentum without having to backtrack, so I figured, “Why not?” After all I had just left a party where I was feeling young-n-dumb again.
I didn’t count on the sun going down so fast and it being pitch black out there—no moon in the sky that I could see. The first 1/3rd of the drive was reasonable and I got to soak in that nostalgia, but it didn’t last long at all because the sun was gone at the same time the asphalt disappeared and the “Watch for Farm Equipment” warning signs appeared on a dirt road marred with indentations from tractor tracks.
This is where that light was mounted. Click here to go there
Oh, and those tight turns with blind corners where children of the corn might appear? Here is that crazy bend: Click to see the bends up close
In the end, this is the route I should have taken if I wanted to do that detour correctly.
Notice all of the fields. Somewhere in my nighttime panic attack, I took a wrong turn, backtracked, used a private property road to crossover to highway 99 and made my way home.
Well, this was not a fun memory to re-live. It was way crazier at night during a season where the crops weren’t plowed for the next planting cycle. It’s one of those, “You have to have been there,” moments.
Oh, about that party? That was great feeling 18 again and having my body remind me that I am not.
Thanks for taking a trip with me to the peripheral edge.
-Daniel