Broken left-turn arrow

Sometimes life stares you in the face like a broken left-turn arrow.

You have a green light. But not necessarily an arrow.

This makes you think that oncoming traffic also has a green light, but they aren't going.

So you wait.

For how long?

Then it occurs to you. Maybe my left-turn green is broken. The light's out. Not my blinker, of course, but the one on the traffic light.

And you look at oncoming traffic again. They aren't moving, but you aren't sure if they are waiting for you to go first so they might hit you.

So I went.

And the oncoming traffic didn't move.

And I went through the intersection successfully.

It was, dare I say, slightly surreal, like the rest of the world was in slow-motion or something.

And maybe my green arrow wasn't in fact broken, but the people across the intersection were too busy checking their e-mail or texting or simply not paying attention...

It doesn't matter though.