The scene is an ice-crusted stretch of street known as Mooselook Road in Turner. It’s high noon and the world looks normal. Christmas lights battle for notice against the bright sun.

To a wanderer in this happy place, nothing seems out of sorts. But on this Friday afternoon, just two days before Christmas, a strange thing happened. Empathy and goodwill toward men vanished like the wood smoke rolling from the chimneys all around.

For a half hour on Mooselook Road, graciousness and compassion were eliminated from the world. Perhaps those human characteristics took a brief vacation … to the Twilight Zone.

You will forgive me for the Rod Serling tone. Clearly, I watched too many episodes during the New Year’s marathon on the SciFi Channel. As I write, my upper lip is drawn against my gums and I have a wild urge to dangle a cigarette between my fingers.

I’m no Rod Serling, it’s true. But the story set forth above is a real one. At the center of this tale is Nancy, a 66-year-old woman from Leeds who was driving through the area. Nancy has arthritis and walks with some effort. On this day in Turner, her car betrayed her like the joints in her arms and legs, and she became stuck on that icy stretch of road.

“I was freezing. It was so cold that day,” Nancy said. “I had a Windbreaker on and a T-shirt underneath. I wasn’t planning on getting stuck.”

Mooselook Road is not Times Square, but it’s not completely desolate, either. Traffic from a development buzzes to and from Center Bridge Road. In the middle of the afternoon, an older woman who walks with a limp should have no problem hailing assistance.

Only on this day, simple kindness has vanished into another dimension, one not only of sight and sound but of mind.

Nancy made her way on foot to Center Bridge Road after several cars passed her without pause. She tried to wave at them and make it clear she was in peril, but the cars and trucks moved on, carrying drivers to their busy holiday destinations.

“I was saying, Help me, help me,’ but no one would stop,” Nancy said. “They just kept going right by me. I had a cane in my hand but no one stopped to see if I was OK.”

Nancy was not OK. It was a cold day and a windy one. She was chilled and she was starting to panic. One doesn’t like to think a person could succumb in the light of day under the eyes of a local population. But a half hour passed and more than a dozen drivers did, too.

“I was crying because I was so depressed,” she said. “It was horrible.”

Before I get to ending this sad tale, I’ll ask you to stop a moment and imagine yourself as one of those drivers who disregarded a helpless woman at the side of the road. Was your life so busy in the days before Christmas that you could not be bothered? Did guilt gnaw at you later as you sat in your heated home with a mug of beer clamped in your warm hands?

“Maybe if I’d been younger and was wearing a short skirt, someone would have stopped to help,” Nancy said. It is a point worthy of reflection.

I like to think that most of us have a special trigger that spurs us to action when another person is in obvious need. Older people and children provoke us to respond, but anyone in a predicament should get help from a populace noted for generosity and kindness.

Maybe there really was a sort of phenomenon that day on Mooselook Road, one that blinded the passersby to the plights of others. Maybe it really was the suction of the Twilight Zone. At any rate, the compassion drought ended at about 12:30 p.m. when a woman named Donna pulled to the side of the road. She drove Nancy back to her car and helped to get the vehicle back on the road.

“I don’t know who she is. She was just Donna from Greene,” Nancy said. “But she was a great lady. I was so glad when she stopped.”

A simple Samaritan act from a stranger. One person coming to the aid of another. Such an event should not be uncommon enough to warrant a long analysis from a Rod Serling wannabe, but there it is. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of the imagination. Your next stop, Route 4. Make sure your snow tires are in good shape and check your compassion levels before starting out.

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter. Visit his blog at www.sunjournal.com.

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