almost dead

Had the turn of events been cruel to me, I could have been dead this very night. No, this is not a hyperbolic statement. This could have been true.

I am supposed to be on the road to Manila this night with my mother, two brothers, and our driver. But we decided to turn back after this incident. There were signs that I could have heeded to prevent what have happened hours ago. But luckily still, we were alright.

While traveling along the Maharlika Highway already in Sipocot, our car's side mirror bumped with another one's'. Thinking it was a reckless truck who did it, we decided to let the incident pass by. But unknowingly, the passenger on that vehicle was a prominent person and thought of us as ambushers. It was the governor of a certain province (let the name be left concealed) with his driver and army of body guards inside the black Lincoln Navigator who got bumped with our meekly Mitsubishi Strada. Both vehicle suffered the same fate - a completely dilapidated side mirror.

But our fate could have been worse if we did not park by the side a few meters from the incident to check our side mirror. Being a high government official, the passengers on the vehicle could have been too paranoid that someone is after their boss. So while on park by the street side, a man coming from behind our car got hold of our driver's shirt in an aggressive mode. He was armed with a rifle and asked our driver if we were the one who crashed with their side mirror. Few men arrived after him and there was a little interrogation on what have happened. But seeing us, saintly looking passengers, their mood was changed to a lighter one.

On the duration of the conversation, they told us they could have fired bullets on us had we not stop because as said earlier they thought of us as ambushers. It happened that after our car bumped on theirs, they tailed on us ready to fire their guns. We were lucky we made the stop. The men introduced themselves later on with the governor who got off the vehicle also to negotiate on the damage.

Since I am not that good on story-telling, you may not feel the fear we had. In the end, we decided to go back to Naga since we do not have the left side mirror of our car. And thank God we're still alive.

P.S. On our defense, it was really their fault, not ours. We were on the right line (right as in correct). What happened is that they were overtaking a motorcycle and so they got to our line a bit. And they were really the one who bumped on our side mirror.