Had the pedal been a trigger

“What is wrong with you”, I yell
in a reflex born of fear and frustration,
to the car made of all mistuned engine and no grace.
He has barely missed me revving toward the crossing,
at the corner of a street festival otherwise full of music and laughter.
He responds to the question in the split-second it takes him to pass me
—arm hanging by the open window, head lolling outward just enough to grimace—
by slamming the gas pedal.
The red light barely fifty feet away
—the light ahead had been red all this time—
means he slams the break as hurriedly as he did the gas.
But his rage will not be contained,
so he speeds through the red light in the angry squeals of engine and wheels.

I imagine for a moment that this must have been what it feels like
to stand powerless in front an angry man with a gun,
his accumulated anger rendered into an object of harm
that will not be stopped with reason alone.
I imagine that
    had the pedal been a trigger,
he would have as eagerly applied in that moment
the token force it takes to propel the deadly payload
to the momentary target of his ire.

Isn’t it called ‘gunning the engine’, after all?
Isn’t his
    midlife crisis on four wheels
    another substitute dick in the same manner as a gun?
How would a bad driver with a car be stopped by a good driver with a car anyhow?
When did a penis ever stop another penis from transgression?

I let my fear dissipate and my breathing return to normal,
aided by the gentle music that resumes
and the bubble-chasing children laughing again behind me
mere feet away from the corner where someone almost died.

My mind runs the labyrinth of questions uselessly a few more times.
What about the next time?
Other than luck, what can protect me from the unfeeling harshness of statistics?

I return to the laughter and the music
and glimpse in them a faith for an expanding warmth
that can cover even the seas of anger one day,
whether I see it myself
or not.

Melih Sener