Displacement

David was engaged in one of his favourite pastimes - swearing at farmers.

"For fuck's sake," he shouted as the tractor dawdled down the country road in front of him, as it had been doing for the last fifteen minutes. If the bridge hadn't been closed he could have cut round and avoided all this but no, it just had to be closed today, and now he was stuck behind another one of these bastards who was doubtless looking in his wing mirror now and smirking at the townie.

"Take your time, mate. Go on, stop, have a fucking picnic or something. Don't mind me. It's not like anyone else might want to use this excuse for a road, ooooh no. You inbred prick. Oh God, this is a waste of fucking time." He slapped the steering wheel. "What the hell am I doing here? What in Christ's name was I thinking? Of all the shitty places to get a contract... oh, fuck it, it's not like I've not said all this before."

He turned on the radio, which had mysteriously kept tuning itself to something called Sunrise FM, the morning DJ on which made him want to kill. By reflex he switched to Long Wave, and Brian Humphries came on the speakers, interviewing some awful-sounding woman about the American election.

"Oh Christ, that's all I need," David sighed. "Fucking inbreds in a different country." He clicked the radio off and wished he had a cigarette. The week really wasn't starting that well. He knew that Jan was doing a staff review this afternoon, and there was a meeting which he really should attend in... David checked his watch... twenty-five minutes. Of course, it looks so good if you're late for a meeting on the same day as your poisonous boss is looking for downsizeable people. And the "I got stuck behind a tractor" excuse, however true, doesn't sound very good two weeks in a row.

A blinging sound from the passenger seat told him that his mobile was ringing. "Jan Office", the screen said. Terrific.

"Hi, Jan... no, I'm okay, I'm on my way, I'm just having a bit of traffic... yes, I'll be there, I might be five minutes late...Yes, yes, I know... No, I won't... okay, see you later, half an hour tops. Cheers. Bye." In the wing mirror of the tractor ahead, David could quite clearly see that the driver was pouring himself a cup of tea from a Thermos. "Oh, for fuck's sake," he repeated. "This is taking the fucking piss."

He thought idly about driving through the hedge and cutting around the tractor through the field next to the road - only he would be sure to get his car covered in cow pats, and probably get the wheel stuck in a rabbit hole or something. Still, he thought, it should only be a few more minutes and then they'd be out of this crappy back lane and at the crossroads, and he could always overtake the bastard then. And even if the contract didn't get renewed that would be a blessing. Probably.

As he sat and drummed his fingers on the wheel and the tractor moved steadily onwards, David noticed someone pressed up against the hedge by the side of the road. A tall man in a woolly hat and a long coat, slightly muddy now. The tractor rolled past him and he waved at David, who stopped, winding down his window and letting the freezing air in.

"Can I help you?" he asked. The man looked at him for a second with a puzzled expression, then blinked.

"Yes, sorry, I was sure I recognised you for a second there... yes, my car's broken down, are you going anywhere near Hopedon?"

"Not quite into the centre but I'm stopping a bit closer than here. Do you need a lift? You can use my phone if you want to call a garage...."

"Lift would be great, thanks."

"Hop in then." David moved his mobile and his briefcase and the man sat down next to him. "I'd say put your seatbelt on," David continued, "but there's not much need with this bugger in front of us."

The man smiled. "Jonathon," he said.

"David. You work in Hopedon?"

"No, just visiting. Relatives."

"Ah." The tractor crawled onwards. David scratched his nose, fiddled with the CD player. "You know," he suddenly said, "this is the second time in a week that I've got stuck behind a...". There was nobody in the passenger seat. "...the fuck...?" He stamped on the brake, got out of the car, looked around. Nobody apart from the tractor driver. He ran around to the other side - the door was still shut, locked in fact.

He got out of the car without me hearing, locked the door behind him, and disappeared in a few seconds. David found himself scrambling onto the top of hedges, trying to look behind them, sending a few blackbirds twittering off until he stepped back, shirt covered in leaves and tie slightly ripped, and looked ahead at the tractor turning right at the crossroads.

He checked his watch. He had twenty minutes. This might work. Something else was there to clear the disappearing hitchhiker from his mind. The human mind has an immense capacity to ignore details in the face of perceived necessity and David managed not to think about vanishing Jonathon until after two hours of really rather productive meeting, when he was sitting back at his cubicle, relaxed, feeling pleased with himself and clicking through a succession of pointless emails, his attention started to wander, and exactly what had happened started to fight its way back into his consciousness and ruin his good mood. He stared at another forwarded email he'd seen a dozen times before without reading it. What the hell happened there?

The rest of the day wasn't very productive at all. He had been planning to check out the latest hire's implementation of the classes they needed but somehow he found himself looking at local websites, trying to see if there were any strange events, people killed on that road. He didn't want to say "ghost" to himself consciously but he'd read enough horror stories for that to be an ever-present issue. Not that he found anything. He heard someone moving behind him and reflexively ALT-TABbed back to the code editor.

"Half five, Dave, I'm off. You staying late?" said Anup, who sat on the other site of the partition.

"Oh, no, no, I'm just looking at something." This is getting nowhere anyway.

"Listen, we're going down the pub just now. Just the Horses, nothing special, few pints..."

"Sounds good. Can I get a lift?"

"Sure, Diane's driving." Anup swung his laptop bag over his shoulder. David shut down the PC and joined him in the lift.

Walking across the car park of Farrow Industries, David thought about mentioning the morning's events, but... somehow, it didn't seem the right thing to do.