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    “Okay, thanks.”  
    I hung up the phone. The ad said that the payment for the massage would be 200 roses. Roses were at least four dollars each, so I knew I couldn’t afford that. I started clicking around for a better deal.  
    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something flat white on the screens, reflecting all of the light from the street lamps overhead. It was a large 18 wheel tractor trailer driving fast out of Virginia on the Inner Loop of the Beltway. It was alone on the road with nothing but pavement ahead. It occurred to me that it was the same person I talked to on the phone.
    Driving this early in the morning was a strategy. It was just after 3:30 AM, the time when the trucks that are prohibitively huge start going, so as to give everyone as much space as possible, and to make good time. The truck went quickly across the American Legion Bridge, clearly speeding. Truck drivers do anything they can to avoid the Beltway before rush hour. I wished, standing there watching it go, that I would have told the guy about the disabled vehicle that was sitting in the second lane to the left, especially considering he was traveling at such a high rate of speed.  
      I looked at the disabled vehicle in the Old Georgetown camera. It showed no signs of moving. I looked back at the truck, speeding past on the Inner Loop of the Beltway. I started shouting at the screen and wildly waving my arms.
    I said a silent prayer that the truck would take 270. The truck leaned to the right and continued, passing 270 and heading straight for the disabled car. It merged and picked up more speed, the metal on its sides looked like they shook from the effort exerted by the engine. The monitors had no sound but I could almost hear the giant gears shifting.  
    I dove at the phone, I pushed * and 6 and 9. I listened to the tone ‘this feature has been disabled…’, and I hung up. All I could do was watch.
    The truck continued fast, the leaves shook when it passed. It’s that moment that I never forget. I stared at the screens as the truck approached the car, it was like a countdown. The driver clearly gassed the engine when it pulled into the straight stretch after I-270. I watched in horror as the truck started drifting to the left, then drove into lane 2, directly at the unlit obstacle in its path.  
    In the movies this is where the hero swoops in and saves everybody. That’s not what happened here.
      Whenever it plays in my head, which it often does, I see it drawn out, measured in hours instead of the mere seconds that elapsed. When you see a thing like that, time and space get distorted to allow every horror to be examined.  
    In the camera, you could see the car stopped, and behind it the curtain of black. Then the truck came out of the darkness, like a great green sea monster emerging from a lake of oil, it looked gigantic compared to the hopeless and helpless tiny compact passenger car in front of it. Puffs of smoke spat from the two front tires as the driver cut the wheel, desperate to avoid the impact.  
    The giant tires caught the asphalt. The ground underneath trembled from the weight, and the traffic camera pointed at the scene shook like it was sitting on a jostling bed. The cab of the truck cut to avoid the car but the trailer swung forward. The disabled vehicle, which I learned later had a family inside, was slapped and went flying as if thrown by a catapult. It looked like it was rolling when it disappeared from the view of the camera.  
    The cab lunged toward the trees. Slowly, in my mind, the cab of the truck started disintegrating. It was shredded by trees that stood firm in the ground; some of the large branches pierced the metal and glass. The trees took some damage but not as much as the metal, they cut through the cab like it was nothing more than wet paper. The trailer looked like a ripple went down through it, its sides fell open as it passed, throwing all the contents inside the trailer onto the