THIS HAPPENED

 


On the penultimate day of January in the year 2009, two little girls sat huddled together for warmth in the back seat of their mother’s car. They were not at school this day, the eight- and ten-year-old sisters. A professional development day at their school left them at home, and their mother had hauled them along to do the grocery shopping with her. Trouble was, they detested accompanying their mother along the aisles of food and they insisted they would resist going into the store with her. So she had left them there, alone in the car, while she shopped.

As their mother slammed shut the driver-side door, the two little girls turned to one another with a bewildered exchange of looks. They hadn’t anticipated this. That their mother would so uncharacteristically relent, and leave them there on their own, while she shopped the aisles of the supermarket. It was cold and they felt abandoned. They suddenly felt a deep fear besiege them. It was true they were in the familiarity of their mother’s car, but they were overwhelmed by the unfamiliarity and threat implicit in their vulnerability at this strange turn of events.

They nudged closer together, mute with fear, the same thoughts flooding each mind. What if someone tried to abduct them? What if someone wanted to steal their mother’s car? With them in it. They knew it had happened. They had been street-smartened, they had been casually informed time and again how dangerous it might prove to be to their safety to place trust in people they didn’t know. They had been schooled in street-smart behaviour, avoidance of potential problems.

They were girls, and knew as though instinctively that girls, and young girls in particular were often the target of sick minds. They knew, but it hadn’t bothered them before; they had just accepted it as casually as their mother had spoken to them of it. Yes, they had on the rare occasion, spoken darkly, thrillingly, with their school friends of the dangers of the world beyond their experience.

But this, this being left on their own, so unexpectedly, was chilling and they felt fearfully apprehensive. It began to get dimmer in the car, the result of a sudden snow squall, the snow swiftly covering the car, its windows, and having the effect to the girls of further distancing them from their mother’s protective presence. They cowered together, held hands, and looked helplessly at the windshield before them, the windows on either side, as they became completely snowed over.

There likely comes a time in the lives of all children when they suddenly feel their immortality status to have been nudged slightly into the realm of loomingly-eventual mortality. A distressingly overwhelmingly painful recognition that often occurs in the deep dark velvet hours of the night. In this instance, the sisters were introduced to the reality of potential, as a brace of shivering abandoned coevals, the deep of night replaced by the dim of opaque car windows.

And then, it happened. As they watched, first puzzled, then with a growing sense of unease, submitting finally to horror, the side-front window on the driver’s side was being methodically brushed free of snow. To reveal an outline of a hulking figure intent on clearing the snow. When the window had been freed of snow, a large head bent, to peer through the window. The face of a stranger, a man, bearded, his eyes inquisitively searching the interior, toque- and winter-jacket-clad, suddenly focusing his attention. On them. The girls shuddered, shrank back, entwined their arms about one another, and opened their mouths in a chorus of shrieks.

The man withdrew from the window. There was a pause, and a silent apprehension overwhelmed the children. Suddenly the passenger-side car door was yanked open. There was the man, hulking above them. He reached into the car to grasp the arm of the youngest girl, sitting closest to the door. She screamed piercingly, her fear so palpable, it could be smelled. She clutched her sister’s hand, pulling against the mature strength of the man, and her sister reciprocated, herself screaming wildly, trying to maintain her grip on her little sister’s waist, as the man’s strength overwhelmed both theirs, and steadily drew the child closer to him….

That, however, never happened.

What did happen is that the man, startled by the sight of the two cowering little girls, leaped back in alarm at the untenable situation that his curiosity had precipitated. He bent gently toward the car window again, attempted some placatory motions, to indicate his harmless intent, his error in judgement. But nothing, it seemed, would stop the panic and terror in the little girls’ eyes, their ululating shrieks for salvation from the nightmare they had imagined come to fruition.

Finally, he stepped away from the car, not knowing what else, under the circumstances, he could do. The damage was done. He walked the few steps from the children’s vehicle to his own, parked facing theirs, in the parking lot of the supermarket. Where he too awaited someone’s exit from the food store.

Like the little girls, he detested entering the grocery store, hated wandering the aisles with his wife, and thought that, at age 72, he could finally assert himself and convince her it would be best if he waited, read the newspaper, until she completed her shopping assignment. It had become their weekly ritual. She no longer expected him to accompany her to the interior of the supermarket, respecting his dislike of the experience.

He had earlier in the day finally discussed with her the results of his search for the best possible buy in a new car, to replace their 9-year-old vehicle. There was nothing wrong with their car, it was a fine one, mechanically sound, in good shape, but he wanted another one, a new model with new safety features and above all, cruise control so he could relax on long trips. And he wanted something more -- well -- luxurious than their 53 years of marriage and struggling to raise a family, paying off a mortgage had ever permitted them to own.

And there, before them, when he parked the car that morning, was the very model of the very manufacture that he had selected. He had done his research carefully, from perusing the latest results from Consumer Reports, to endlessly surfing web sites for makes, models, performance details, mechanical reliability, gas consumption. He hadn’t yet invited his wife to accompany him to a few area car retailers to actually view the vehicles, but that was next.

He was hoping to be able to finally take steps toward owning a new car by spring. And, he had decided, they would keep the old car. Not a bad idea to keep it, for when their children visited it would handily avail them of alternate opportunities to drive wherever they needed to or wanted to, without leaving them without a vehicle themselves. A good solution, he felt.

So, once his wife had departed the car to enter the supermarket, he had ventured over to the car parked before his, to have a better look. And he wanted to view the interior. It was, however, snowing so heavily, he could see nothing without first clearing snow off the car’s window....

He sat there for a few minutes, then was startled to see the door of the car where the children sat, suddenly flung open, and the two little girls make a mad, dishevelled dash for the entrance of the supermarket, hats askew, scarves trailing them, wildly looking about as they stumbled forward swiftly, awkwardly, still holding fast one another’s hands.

And he sat there, numbly, not quite knowing what to expect. He rolled down his car window, despite the ongoing snow and the cold seeping enthusiastically throughout the car. Soon enough the two little girls exited, each holding close to the coattails of two adult women. One, obviously the children’s mother, the other perhaps a friend. He looked deliberately in their direction, trying to demonstrate that he had nothing to hide, and tentatively smiled. What he met was two grim faces, returning his smile with implacably angry countenances.

He watched, dismayed, as the two little girls were ushered into their car interior, one of the women placing herself on the passenger front side, while the other woman began clearing the snow off her car windows, throwing condemnatory, furious glances at him from time to time. He sighed, rolled his car window closed, and exited his car to approach the woman. And he stood there, only slightly stumbling his words, explaining to her what had occurred, and apologizing.

The woman listened silently, inclining her head toward the man. He could see into the car, the children agitated at his presence, cowering, and obviously saying something to the woman sitting in front of them, watching the exchange between the children’s mother and the man who had approached her. He experienced problems focusing on the face of the woman before him, his eyes straying to the children's strained and still-frightened faces.

You disgusting old creep, the children’s mother finally mouthed, when the man had finished explaining to her what had propelled him toward her car, and how shocked he had been when his attempts to view the interior had revealed her two frightened children. You miserable old reprobate, I’ll teach you a lesson. She stone-facedly reached into her bag slung over her shoulder struggled a few moments, then withdrew a pen and writing pad, leaned slightly to sight his license plate and made a show of writing it down carefully. I intend, she said, drawing herself to full height - slightly taller than the man in fact - to contact the police. You can expect a visit from them.

This never happened.

The woman burst into laughter, said that would teach her two girls a lesson, explaining that she had been fed up with their continual complaints and for the first time had decided to permit them to sit out her shopping excursion, waiting, in the car. And how utterly peculiar it was; she too had owned the same make car as his of similar vintage, had done her homework, and decided, after test-driving her ultimate choice, that this was the car for her.

This happened.