(A forty-five minute break to scribble out some new three hundred word fiction.)
Five hundred and forty-two days, I counted them from one. I liked to count everything, mental spreadsheets that digitalised my life. Various birthdays and anniversaries, I recalled with little effort. Things attached to pain and angst, those days in distance I measured like the calculus of escape velocity, with worry a trip in forward momentum meant a fall back into their insufferable thrall.
In some instances, one didn’t reach escape speed. For some, perhaps those of more courage or maybe those with less, they checked out at an exit of their own creation. Me, I slogged onward, either the fool or for want of a chance at amends.
One message, a birthday wish to boot. My mental calendar insisted I text the celebrating twenty-eight year old co-worker, a whimsical task undertaken with an eager-to-please smile. One hand steered the wheel. The other tapped on tiny keys.
The send key depressed as if a plunger wired to TNT. Glass shattered, a bag inflated into me. Momentum launched my body into it, restrained some by the locked belt across shoulders, chest, and abdomen. Twisting metal screeched louder than the squeal of rubber on asphalt. Gravity and centrifugal force fought over my hide, and something crushed from what I presumed to be on high. I recalled nothing else.
Two weeks later, four days after regained consciousness, I learned the accident affected others beyond anyone who loved me. Of the three involved, I alone drew the grace of fate, spared with eleven broken bones and external fixation to stabilise an open fracture.
Happy birthday became nightmare, an unimaginable result from an unthinking act. I didn’t care what the court did with me in requital. On day five hundred and forty-three, society said I could walk free, but guilt and nightmares imposed a life sentence.
Wow. Powerful stuff. A happy birthday that killed.
Thanks… the sucky part is it happens. It may not be a birthday wish, it might be flirting, it might be ‘I have to stop at the store’. The intent might be just that mundane, but texting behind the wheel has a horrific reach.
Oh, it certainly does.
Reblogged this on almira1109.
Great story! Sad… I love to read your stuff Nelle
Thank you for your kind words and for stopping by. I hope things are calmer tonight.
Deserving of quotation marks under a anonymous portrait, posted next to exit doors which lead to parking spaces. Powerful, gripping and sadly, incredibly accurate.
Such an innocuous act on the surface, but the distraction is enough to cause horrific, life changing and life taking accidents. Our modern world comes at us at a faster pace, relentless, as if everything we do is akin to crossing a busy road. Children learn to take heed of traffic from both directions on the rare occasions they must cross, but now too many things in life are as dangerous.
Accidents happen, none of us are immune but as you point out the speed an pace life just pile on the distraction. Having things, hurrying to get to nowhere significant, chatting and texting – I could not do it without overloading and saying good bye to sanity. No cell phone, nor smart phone here -just a simple old conforming nonconformist country mice. However, I still have to remind myself not to think about shtufffs while driving -a chronic day dreamer I am. In my chair I’m harmless behind the wheel, well I have frightened myself.
It pays to review our unthinking habits in driving, and I applaud you taking such initiative. I’m also a daydreamer.
Excellent, Nelle – very visual.
It has me thinking though, how society says ‘you can now go free’.
I know we need punishment for such acts (and drunk driving) but just funny to me, when you think of this big world with us all on it, and just like in the playground of childhoods we make someone the leader, and there’s the punisher and so on, so on. It’s just kinda surreal, to me.
But an excellent message ABSOLUTELY, and timely.
¸.•*¨*•. ♪♫♫♪Happy New Year to you, Nelle, .♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸
˜”*°•.˜”*°•.˜”*°•.★★.•°*”˜.•°*”˜.•°*”˜” & wishing for you, what you wish this year.♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸
I can attest to the fact that many sentences are time definite, but how we cope is not. Long before any indictment against me, from the beginnings of recovery, really, I’ve been haunted by the damage I caused. My therapist would tell you it’s been my biggest issue right along, and not just for what I was ultimately charged, but for the damage I caused loved ones. That will be with me for the whole of my life.
There are those who could care less, and those folks go right on causing problems.
Nelle, your remorse I do understand. I mean, I cannot relate to, but do “get”.
I watched a film tonight and a work mate befriends a new guy & realises the new guy’s wife died in a car accident, and his sporting, brilliant son was left brain damaged – and HE was the one who caused the accident as he was drunk, had just broken up with his girlfriend – and he ran from the crime.
The utter pain he suffered BEFORE he met that new guy at work & realised what effect he’d had that night, let alone AFTER I could feel so much.
I can imagine it is something very present with you, Nelle, and I don’t know what counsellors would say, but by society’s standards you have “done your time”. I hope you are ok.
N.
Thank you. For me, the best possible means is using it to spur me forward toward better. I’ll be damned if that will be what defines me as a person, or my life. I can and I will do better.
Nightmare indeed. On a lighter note, I discovered with my students recently (reading a learning English text from the News) that in some states texting while walking has now been made illegal, it can have just as dangerous consequences, but there are some quite hilarious instances as well, the most memorable for me being the man who looked up only to encounter a bear loping towards him, it certainly pays to keep eyes forward at all times!
rofl at the thought of a bear… Perhaps a dozen years ago, a neighbour was at my then home, the two of us having a rather typical couple of beers post school (she was a teacher) whilst our kids played. She wished to walk down to her home to check on dinner cooking in the oven. She walked off our drive and onto the road, looked up – right at a moose, about ten metres away. Moose went one way, she the other.
Think I’d rather a moose, from what I hear once they’ve seen a human they’re almost impossible to rehabilitate back into the wild, those creatures were meant to be our friends
I forgot to add how her daughter came running up the hill a couple of minutes later. “Mommy, mommy, did you see the camel?”
Hysterical!! When I first read this out of context (from my blog click on the icon thing) I imagined you adding this as the last line to your 300 word story, because I hadn’t read your earlier response which was off the screen, now I get it and I’m still laughing, Actually I love my first response, it being part of your story too
A sobering tale told with your normal style and economy of language. Very visual and powerful
Thank you… this was one where I imposed the 300 word cap and held tight. There are things where our intentions are honourable, and one unthinking act turns the world upside down.
Great use of words in this powerful short story.
Thank you!
Nelle, your story is powerfully descriptive. We all know how often this type of thing happens, I’ve lost school mates, even my daughter who is still in high school has lost a few to this very thing. Yet today, what do I see as we leave the mall in our separate vehicles and waiting at the red light? She’ll say she was just checking for calls – but wait till she gets home.
It happens too often. In another life I studied accident theory, and for every actual accident there are hundreds of near misses. Lives get ruined, and no one meant any harm. I’m not sure how we reinforce how critical it is to avoid such doings.
I hope your daughter listened. Point her at this story.