Prose
The Past
By Charlie Beck

Perhaps one of the central tenets of the human race is our essentially egotistical nature. While there is obviously an incredibly large gap between those people with the largest egos and those with the smallest, our inherent interest in ourselves and undeniable and may very well be one of the biggest qualifications that set us apart from the animals. Even the most humble middle-aged wife and mother will find her interest piqued when she comes across a child who resembles her own. Even the most quiet, unassuming priest will find a great deal to talk about when he learns a communicant went to the same school as his cousin. It’s seemingly unavoidable.

My own quirky conceit in this regard tends towards people on the highway who drive the same car as me. The vehicle in question is certainly nothing fancy, quite the opposite in fact. The level of my personal egoism is uncovered by simply revealing the make, model, and year: a 1986 Buick Century. It’s one thing to be excited when one passes a rare vintage car in beautiful condition, but not I. There’s not a car on the road that used to interest me more than this broken-down rust bucket with one wheel in the grave (as they almost inevitably are at this point). While the current reason for my interest in this particular auto will become clear in the course of the following story, it didn’t start that way.

I first got my Buick in 1998 when my grandmother died. She didn’t use the car much and it had really only been driven to church and the grocery store for years. When I became owner it was already twelve years old and only had about 40,000 miles on it. It’s not a terribly attractive car but I quickly took to it, perhaps because of the connection to my grandmother, perhaps because of a natural predilection to affection and loyalty towards nearly everyone I know and everything I own. At any rate, I soon become a certified Century-spotter.

At first it was easy. The car was extremely common and I had a definite Century-sight nearly every day. Now, I was always on the lookout for anything even a little close. Centuries of any year were good but not incredibly exciting. 1986 Centuries were a definite cut above and treated as such. My greatest enthusiasm, however, was reserved for maroon 1986 Buick Century sedans exactly the same as mine. They were always a rare sighting but as the years rolled by and more and more 1986 cars left the road, they became essentially nonexistent.

This brings me up to 2006 when I was twenty-five years old, newly married, and generally loving life. I was celebrating my car’s 20^th Birthday (celebrating is probably too strong of a word; it was just the general excitement that accompanies all vehicle-milestones, on par with taking a photo when the odometer rolls over the 100,000 mile mark) with a Sunday afternoon drive. I had the windows down and the music turned up and I was enjoying a pleasant drive when I spotted one of my car’s few living twins. I was thrilled. Here I was on my victory drive and I just happened to spot an exact duplicate- make, model, year, color; it even had a few small patches of rust in the same places.

Naturally, I had to drive up closer and take a look: my brand of egoism demanded I know a little bit about this other individual who had essentially dedicated days of his or her life to riding in the belly of this nondescript machine. And this is approximately where the story takes a rather strange twist. For you see, I naturally caught a glimpse of the license plate. And I was confused to see that it was, well… it was the same as mine.

Now, it has occurred to me in the past that whatever machine determining license plate numbers has to occasionally make a mistake.

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