Thumping over Troll Bridge

I was on the road. Enclosed car with soft heated air. Podcast piped into my ears. Cruise control and lane guides on. Too dark to see anything other than headlights. I realized that I was as about as disconnected from anything real as it as possible to be. There are worse horrors than being comfy, but still . . .

So as the highway cut through the hills, I pulled off a short winding way and got out in the cold air to be under the stars.

That is the perfect place to end, the virtuouso literary touch. Except as I walked in the dark there in the hills, an unmoored fear came over me and I scurried back, thumping over the wooden bridge on the path with a sound that felt like it would wake trolls.