THE UBER DRIVER’S HAND was warm and calloused, but its electric charge was unexpected.
It shouldn’t have been, though, since for the past forty-five minutes we had free-associated on topics that don’t lend themselves to easy or uncomplicated conversation: God, mind, the uselessness of AI, Self-realization (not a typo) and ego-death, gurus, the constancy of change, the Indian fashion-industry, meditation, capitalism, health and healing, life’s unpredictability, Hindu holyman Ramana Maharshi.
His car was a late-model Tesla – ironically, since we also agreed we shouldn’t colonize Mars – enroute to a faraway hospital, where my copilot was undergoing heart surgery. I told him this toward the end of the ride, and he reached back a ringed and metal-braceleted hand to take one of mine.
“Aw, man,” he said. “Blessings come from God.”
That was when something unexpected passed between us.
“For her,” he said with earnest intensity.
We conversed a bit more before pulling up to the hospital.
“Thank you,” I told him as I got out. “And thank you for your blessing.”
“Aw, man,” he said. “Blessings come from God.”
“Yes,” I replied. “But thank you for being the conduit.”
A few minutes later I stood next to my copilot’s bed. She had just come out of surgery, pale and weak-voiced and pained of expression. Her escape from the Beyond had been a close one, but her doctors were skilled. With a why-not-it-couldn’t-hurt shrug, I touched her leg with the hand the driver had grasped. Nothing unexpected this time, just a loving gesture of comfort.
Mind you, I am a skeptic in the original sense of the word: an open-minded soul who doesn’t chase after explanations of the inexplicable. And really, earnest handshakes are common enough. But over the next few hours, as she went from colorless and tentative to walking with me about the cardio unit, beaming a delighted smile at everything we passed, I wondered.
Perhaps that’s the way her sort of surgery is supposed to work. I like to think it does.
But on the other hand, every little bit helps.