It was swelteringly hot, the trains had all been delayed and I was stranded at Waterloo station with hundreds of other commuters waiting for a train home. After slowly baking in Waterloo (which I realised is basically a giant greenhouse) a train became available and the hordes descended on the unusually shortened train. As we sweated our way home I was reading a commentary on Ezekiel as I am preparing a sermon on Ezekiel's final vision in chapters 40-48. And so with my mind full of such things as the River of Life I finally disembarked and came out into the fresh air.
There was a car parked on the side of the road and a fellow commuter had just gratefully climbed into it. Anticipating that the car was about ready to head off, I crossed the road behind the car. Unfortunately, the driver decided that for some unfathomable reason he needed to reverse. And so despite swathes of people crossing the road all around his car he choose that moment to reverse and decided he didn't really need to check his mirrors and so he drove into me. Thankfully the noise of my body and wedding ring impacting his boot made sufficient noise to alert him to his error and he applied the brakes.
There was a pause – I was stunned, he was surprised. He eventually managed to enquire "Are you alright mate?", to which I mumbled "Yeah". It felt wrong. I had just had a close encounter with his car and I felt like I should have said more, but I had nothing. He had just nearly run me over, I could have died, but my wit failed me and so after barely spluttering 'yeah' I walked home feeling slightly embarrassed.