I don't even know where the switch for the sirens might be, but I'm the one behind the wheel nonetheless. For reasons bigger than myself, I have to navigate the maze, and get this truck (is it fire and rescue? let's say yes) to the place where it truly needs to be.

It's the middle of the night, of course - visibility is bad, not only of the road but of what I'm driving. I try not to be distracted by figuring out the controls that I can't see. I rely on the feel of the steering wheel, the ponderous sway of the truck as I make it maneuver. Kinesthetically, it's similar enough to the utility trucks I had to drive as a teenager. (I never knew why I had to be driving those, either.) It's similar enough for me to guide it well, I think - I hope. It better be, because I have to get it there.

So many corners, so many decisions - the path I take is both indefensible and essential. There's just no rational way to proceed, and every move will justify itself when I've reached the goal. I believed I was choosing well enough until I reached the roadblock, and had to discard all my precious momentum in stopping to puzzle it out.

Traffic-directing flashlights, cones, and badges. A line of cars submitting to be stopped, for a reason I didn't yet understand. That damnable drizzle obscuring what I needed to see, needed to know. My fingers curling to flick at a lever on the tree - conspicuous is not what I want, but high-beams are what I need.

There's a short interrogative squeal of a siren, and momentary rolling lights. The nearest badge straightens with a start, points his flashlight at me, waves me to the left and around. Oh shit, that was me, I did that; why can't I see what I'm doing... My lips move silently in some curses or invocations, as I swing my difficult beast of a machine to go where I am sent, and to stop at an upraised hand. The badge who waved me over opens my passenger door.

"I have to keep moving." Each word of it spoken as if I were carving it on a stone tablet, even as I realize I cannot really tell him why.

He vaults himself into my passenger seat, extinguishing his light. "Go," he says, and nothing more. And so I do.

Delicate steering and nudging of throttles follows - there's never really enough room for me to maneuver, ever. I get past the roadblock without squashing feet or cones, and finally come clear enough to build some speed, with the silent tacit agreement of the observer I did not want. Now not only do I have to reach what I'm chasing, and discover how to get there along the way, but I have to appear at each step to already know how it's done, and make no false moves along the way. For the moment, at least, he is silent.

The next turn on my path is the oddest yet - through a gap in a split-rail fence, into a pasture. (Wasn't this absurdly urban a moment ago? No matter.) I cut the wheel to the right, hit the clutch, downshift. The steering wheel tries to pull itself from my hands, the vehicle lists and groans on its suspension - but damned if it doesn't slip right through that gap, perhaps minus some paint here and there. Good enough.

As I plot my course across the grass and accelerate into it - I really must get this thing there - the badge at my side speaks in a monotone, both impartial and completely judgmental. "Based on what I'm observing of your driving, you are at a three out of twenty on a scale of intoxication risk. Do you think that's acceptable for what you're doing?"

What? (Whipping the wheel back left, trying to crest the hill at the right point.) I'm not impaired at all, you fucker, I'm just maybe not at my best. (Truck shudders as a back tire catches a depression I couldn't have seen in the grass, and now we're slipsliding to the right.) I mean, I know what I'm doing, well enough, I suppose. (Cut the wheel back, to catch the slide and keep moving.) This is my route to run, and I'm running it. (No traction, that damn drizzle again - the back end slews around.) I'm the one at the wheel, you're just riding. (The truck finishes rocking deliriously as it swaps ends, and sure as shit stinks, I'm stopped dead.)

I look out my passenger window, and see the crest of that hill, just exactly not close enough. I must have been headed east, because there's a dull grey precursor to sunrise both providing the outline of the peak, and telling me I won't make it over in time. The badge, having braced himself straight-armed against the dashboard, comes into my focus as he moves, as he slowly exhales and unbends. The consequences for the decisions I can no longer justify will begin to befall me in moments. I slam my fist against that traitor steering wheel as the last movement I'll be able to call unforced, and some small bone in my wrist twinges to tell me the machine won't acknowledge any fault in this. I'm the one at the wheel, and it's all me.

I really had no alternatives at that point.

I snapped my eyes open and came awake, in the grey pre-light of a morning, and drew a long deep breath. I told myself I'd not let my day slip back into being that night. I'd dream the daytime better, out in the world where it counts.

I'm sure I can figure out how. I really am. What's this switch?