He sat in the car and waited. The instructor had kept him waiting. Five, ten minutes. Sitting there, waiting.

The instructor finally arrived, spouting off instructions. He followed all of them, to the letter. Or he believed he had. The panic rose within him, panic he had never felt before when sitting in his car. No matter who sat beside him, he had felt comfortable here.

Now someone was truly going to judge him on this. He didn’t like the feeling.

It was raining. Starting out, listening to all of the instructor’s directions, it went well. As the rain came down harder and harder, it was more and more difficult to hear what it was he was supposed to do.

He no longer recognized the streets. Then again, this wasn’t his hometown. There was no one to give him his test there.

The instructor raised his voice, still calm and collected. Not as if he had trusted his life to a person who could possibly have no idea what they were doing. The tester began to wonder if he had ever known what he was doing.

Finally, finally, he was told to park the car. Back where it had started.

He was told about what he had messed up, given his paper.

He had passed.

With a sigh of relief, he followed the instructor back inside to stop in the bathroom. Time not to look like he had had a panic attack for his picture.