Disposable

We are late for the movie, hurtling up I-85, in the middle of five lanes of traffic. From out of nowhere, a Rubbermaid garbage can flips into the middle of the Interstate.

Cars swerve in all directions. Brake lights flare. Tires scrub on asphalt, trailing smoke.

The garbage can — not a wastepaper basket, mind you, but the heavy-duty sort that can hold a yard’s worth of leaves — bounces off the front of a speeding Honda. It flips over the hood, springing into our lane. I’m headed for it.

I brake too fast. The garbage can freezes, on its side, in my lane. I start to swerve, but there are cars in lanes to my left and right. When we collide, there is a loud noise and the slightest bump. Mangled, the garbage can moves to the next lane, where a Volkswagen van shears it in half.

We drive on, shaky. Clyde, pale, sits low in his passenger seat. I wonder what I should have done, or could have done. My mind spins, lost in what ifs.