Alex Baer: Driving Reality and the Fireball Effect

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Paul MunsterThere are moments in life that make us gasp and seem to stop time in its tracks, submersing us in clear Jell-O -- and then time starts up again, at 1/20th speed.  All the while, at the restart, you know something is horribly wrong, and that you're in real trouble.

You've had those moments:  The tick of the clock when you feel the pit of your stomach leaves and falls through the floor, the temperature instantly plummets to sub-zero.  Yes, and the instant you're sure you're in a car wreck,  already in motion, patiently waiting for final impact.

Sometimes, it's the same feeling, but on a different scale:  The first time you saw initial impacts at the Twin Towers.  That first moment of hearing Kennedy had been shot -- both of them.

Or the time you dreamed you were at Daytona, slipstreaming too tight, pushing past 200 -- then a ripple of air, and you're airborne, a fantastically quick, nanosecond pirouette overhead drivers passing beneath.

Timelocked:  Clear Jell-O.  The Waiting.  The Knowing.  And the explosion you will never hear, the fireball you will never feel.

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