There's a Loon on Highway 46

                                                                                                                                                                There’s a Loon on Highway 46

         Looking into the rearview mirror, Herbert’s eyes widened. There, just behind him, was the blue sedan. The same one he’d seen in the parking lot this morning, and the same one that had been following him from lunch to work and back.

         With every passing day he was losing faith in society…or at least the one around Highway 46.

         “What is wrong with you!” Herbert yelled. He hit his turning lights and made a hasty lane change. The royal purple van in front of him honked its horn.

         “So what? I’m tailgating,” Herbert muttered. “Have you ever had a blue sedan chase you? A blue sedan? A blue sedan?”

         Herbert checked his rearview mirror again. There was no sign of the sedan…until it made the turn into his lane.

         Herbert gritted his teeth, wishing for more than three cars on the road. Partially to call witness to this sedan and partially to put some sort of barrier between that blue monstrosity and his green car.

         It was a blue sedan. Blue…that was the worst part: nauseatingly buoyant, vibrant, Neptunian blue. Herbert hated blue. Herbert hated the sea, drawings of the sea, Picasso’s blue period….

         Herbert fiddled with the band of solid gold on his finger with his thumb and made a sudden decision. Without stopping or flipping on his signal light, he turned quickly into a neighborhood road.

         “Ha! Can’t follow! Can’t follow!” Herbert cackled.

         The blue sedan rolled ponderously into view.

         “No!” roared Herbert. “No! No! No!” He swiped a hand through his tangled brown hair. This was worse than that boy at the office -- what was his name? Walker? -- always bumping into him, and always with a glass of coffee in his trembling little gremlin hands, ready to pour black, black liquid all over him. He'd managed to avoid him today...barely.

         “But tomorrow!” shrieked Herbert to himself. “Tomorrow! Ha! That’s a different story.”

         There was a plot in that, Herbert was sure, but he wasn’t sure that rolling, swerving, Picasso Painting would stop breathing down his neck long enough for him to figure it out.

         Come to think of it…the blue sedan was probably in on it too.

         Herbert hit the pedal and gunned the engine. A squirrel caught on Balustrade Avenue didn’t have a prayer at that moment.

         The blue sedan slowly accelerated in pursuit, but Herbert’s convertible soon left it far behind.

         Herbert laughed uncontrollably. “Got you! Got you! Take off, you blue devil! You blue devil!”

         Herbert sped past a park, made another turn, and looped back onto the main thoroughfare of Highway 46, where only a few cars trailed slowly behind him.

         But then, checking his rearview mirror again, he saw it: a battered red truck. Blazing, crimson, Mars red.

         Herbert hated red. He hated ketchup. He hated fires. He hated pictures of fires….