What lurks unseen on the highways? Spirits of forgotten ancestors?

A couple of weeks ago I was heading into NYC from north central New Jersey. I put my NYC address in my GPS. It decided to send me via the George Washington Bridge after first indicating the Holland Tunnel. I complied with the instructions, figuring there must be some sort of traffic snarl along the other routes. Both the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels are closer to the East Village.

Heading Eastbound on Route 80, I was again diverted to a side road driving first past my “Shattered Reality Podcast” co-host’s place of business and then was sent directly to her home. I checked the GPS and somehow the address displayed had been changed without warning or incident to Kate Valentine’s home. I discovered this about a block before arriving and beat a hasty retreat, wondering how this could have happened. Her home address was one of my past locations but I hadn’t been there in several months. Also of interest is the fact that her place of business is not on a direct route between where I started and her home, so there would be no reason why I should have been taken there first.

Never before had the GPS malfunctioned in this way, and it gave no notice that the destination address had changed, as it should have done when the destination is changed. The GPS controls were never touched. The New York City address was again put in the GPS as I headed eastward on Route 80. In less than five minutes from leaving the proximity of the Valentine home, out of nowhere, Kate called me. I asked her politely about the purpose of the call and she said she didn’t know why she called. She just felt like calling me. Since the passing of our beloved audio engineer Bill in May, the podcast has been on hiatus and Kate and I speak a bit less than once a week.

I told her what had happened and she was aghast. Her home is set back from the road and has lots of trees and shrubbery obscuring any view of the road. We had turned around before reaching her house and it was twilight and we were in a very unremarkable black car, so clearly there was no way she could have seen me. There is no view of the road from inside the house. We decided it was a sign that we should endeavor to restart the podcast and maybe, just maybe it was a sign from beyond the veil from Bill.