Smugly tailing Mr. Cartwright, Philip could tell something was afoot a split second before it happened. He wasn`t certain where it came from, who, why or what.

But then, slam! Crash!

Time normally seemed to freeze. Well, for everyone that wasn`t an Acanthus named Philip, who knew such things were just false perceptions caused by the Lie. But still, his mind raced. His first thought was: Did I get noticed? Was it Mr. Cartwright? Someone or something is actively working against me. If this was Mr. Cartwright, he`ll get his due later and he`ll be sorry. If this was someone else, I guess we`ll see. he thought as he was gripped by a cold fury.

It was a classic T-bone , as parts fell off his car and it received a huge dent. A Skoda Octavia had slammed into Philip`s Golf broadside, causing his car to shudder and jerk violently from the crash as it and all traffic around them ground to a standstill from the, to the other drivers likely only, `temporary inconvenience`. The situation was chaotic and crowded, but through the eerie and surprising silence, he didn`t even have time to think of escaping to protect his identity from the records and nosy bystanders. Fortunately for Philip, no harm came to him personally. Fate, his seatbelt and his air bag did their jobs well to protect him. But any chance he had of finding out about Mr. Cartwright`s plans that night died with the crash.

Soon enough, the cops showed up and everything was handled with the driver of the Skoda as far as insurance and blame for the crash was concerned. Philip was cooperative enough because, of course, he was unable to prevent the Police from getting and marking down whatever evidence they needed of his car and the crash site in their blasted report of it. And, on top of everything, Philip had to stay up late to get his car towed to his repair shop, much to his chagrin, loaning a replacement Ford Focus immediately that night, to take all his belongings from his Golf back to his home. He`d see about getting a permanent replacement car on the next work day, as the Golf had served its` purpose after such an incident. For Philip, it was a complete write-off and would be risky to use again, especially for this mission.

After that debacle, he settled down in his apartment, the Ford Focus parked in front where his Golf used to be. Oh boy. This is gonna require a lot of clean- up work. he thought, sighing. He knew, that day, things had not gone according to his plans and he`d have to be more assertive, but also tactful, in the future. It was a bad ending to a headache of a day with a string of failures. One after another. But nevertheless, he was sure some silver lining had to have come of it.