Of spring chills and headlights' warmth

I had just tempted fate.

We should have called off our plans but I was adamant that we make it to the temple by the sea. For years, the temple by the sea existed only on the front of a postcard. I couldn’t stop now, weather be damned. Fate would just have to be tempted.

It was a chilly spring evening; cherry blossoms long withered away. The sky was dreary and threatened to pour. Harsh winds snapped at our heels. The thin cotton that we were clothed in stood no chance against the wind.

Defeated, we started our arduous trek downhill. Our faces pulled into a grimace, hands jammed in our front pockets, bodies hunched, and legs stiff as we marched forward.

It started to drizzle. Each drop seeped through me and chilled me to the bone.

It was a silent and hopeless war against fate we fought. We could only clench our teeth and press on slowly. The roads were deserted. Despondency hung in the air. I wondered where everyone else had gone.

Were they safely tucked behind a seatbelt in a toasty car or under the warm covers of a bed? Images of cars and beds and warmth bombarded my thoughts and it was all I could do to groan out in frustration.

I was jolted out of my reverie by headlights cutting through the impending darkness. I heard the crunch of gravel under what seemed like car wheels. Car wheels? I felt a surge of warmth coursing through me. I once read that someone on the verge of freezing to death would think of warm happy thoughts. Could it be that my time was already up? I must still be in my dream, I thought with a shake of my head.

An unfamiliar male voice shattered my thoughts for the second time. I turned my head towards the source of the voice. There was a man in the car with the passenger seat window rolled down, speaking to me in Korean. He looked middle aged, arms and face tanned from being under the harsh summer rays and spoke Korean with a thick Busan satoori (dialect).

He saw that we were cold and shivering and offered to drive us downhill so that we could catch a bus back to civilization. Stay out in the merciless cold or accept a ride from a stranger I could barely understand? Fate was tempting me a second time.

I tempted fate again.