I’d been riding the shortcuts for years. I loved the fact that I could get from the city to my cabin in the mountains in just a few minutes. In the summer, I would do it almost nightly. Once I met Sue, I decided to take her up there. She didn’t know about the shortcuts, so I had to make the long drive in real time.

We were driving along in my old Dodge. I loved that car, but it had no air conditioning and we were burning up. We stopped for gas and I went in to pay and buy some drinks. When I came back Sue was reclining, fanning herself. Drinks in hand, we hit the road.

We’d just gotten up to speed before there was a sudden lurch and the car was speeding across someone’s lawn. I swerved around a tree, and then another flash had us on a highway, playing chicken with a tractor-trailer. A third and final lurch and we crashed to a halt in an old stone fountain.

“What the hell was that?” Asked Sue in terror.

Only then did I notice the paper fan she’d crafted from a folded Chamber of Commerce map.