Before joining up, I'd been lurking the boards and journals, when I saw Morgan's post about stark terror and assholes. A few months ago, when I was newer to the new place I'm living, I got on the wrong bus, and missed the last stop. I had realized it was the right bus but going in the wrong direction, and figured it was going to turn around and be the last one going the way I wanted to go. This little error left me out at the bus depot, alone, not sure where I was or where to go to get home, in the dark, in the cold. The kindly bus driver did give me decent directions back to the subway, and I managed to follow them until I came to an intersection that looked like it lead to a freeway on ramp.
The only sign of people was an open-late liquor store that looked closed or empty. In the distance, I thought I saw the parking garage for the station, but it was past the bridge I thought was part of the freeway. Figuring that my stupid, stubborn refusal to ask for directions hadn't got me killed yet, I decided to try following the road I thought was an on ramp. It was dark, and the approach to the highway was eerie. Going under it was the darkest I've ever seen a part of a city get outside of my bedroom, and more quiet than I've ever heard.
It was like a sensory deprivation chamber. All that there was to see was a patch of road at the other end of this overpass, which was lit only by ambient light pollution; the ONLY sound was my breath and my footsteps; all I could feel was some minor frostbite and the padding of my clothes. In that time under the bridge, I realised that no one knew where I was, and I was in a new city with no friends. It is probably more accurate to call that my most helpless, rather than humble moment, except that after I rounded the bend at the other end of the bridge, the sodium vapor lamps of the oceanic New Carrolton lot where blazing away, and everything worked out OK.
The only sign of people was an open-late liquor store that looked closed or empty. In the distance, I thought I saw the parking garage for the station, but it was past the bridge I thought was part of the freeway. Figuring that my stupid, stubborn refusal to ask for directions hadn't got me killed yet, I decided to try following the road I thought was an on ramp. It was dark, and the approach to the highway was eerie. Going under it was the darkest I've ever seen a part of a city get outside of my bedroom, and more quiet than I've ever heard.
It was like a sensory deprivation chamber. All that there was to see was a patch of road at the other end of this overpass, which was lit only by ambient light pollution; the ONLY sound was my breath and my footsteps; all I could feel was some minor frostbite and the padding of my clothes. In that time under the bridge, I realised that no one knew where I was, and I was in a new city with no friends. It is probably more accurate to call that my most helpless, rather than humble moment, except that after I rounded the bend at the other end of the bridge, the sodium vapor lamps of the oceanic New Carrolton lot where blazing away, and everything worked out OK.