The Hour That Wasn't

I was driving south on 29 after a late job in Charlottesville. Rain, not heavy. I know that road. There was a diner I always used as a marker — closed by then, chairs up, the sign dark. I passed it. A minute later, or what I thought was a minute, I passed it again, and the windows were lit and there were people in the booths. I saw a waitress with a coffee pot. I thought I had looped without noticing, which is a stupid thought on a straight road, but that is what I thought.

I looked at the dash. I passed the diner a third time and it was dark, chairs up, as before. My watch said I had lost forty-seven minutes. I did not stop. I wanted the ordinary lights of home.

When I pulled in, my wife was angry I had not called. The kitchen clock agreed with her, not with me. I sat at the table and told her the diner had been open. She said it had been closed for a year. I know that. I knew it that night.

I have driven that stretch a hundred times since. I have never seen the lights. I do not think I fell asleep. I do not think I am owed an explanation. I think something in the rain was not keeping the same hour I was.