Anatomy of a Car Crash

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Becomer

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All things are a microcosm of beauty when looked at in the right light
I remember thinking this to myself
As I studied the refraction of light through dust spots on the front windshield
It is freeing to ride passenger in your own car
You can breathe in your surroundings intently without fear of losing control of your vehicle
It feels like a new experience yet
Riding in your car is likely one of the most familiar places to you

The outside was a new place to us somewhere in Virginia
Just far enough South where everyone moves a step slower
And even the cashier at the gas station greets you in a deep-fried warm welcome
My best friend was home from military leave
He has not seen action and doubts that he ever will
They have him stuck up in the insides of old B-52s in North Dakota
Where the temperature is below zero for half of the year
And it snows in May

He told me that some kids handle it better than others
Apparently the base has problems with new recruits and depression
Statistics are buried there like the nukes

They found his roommate in his truck
With a gunshot wound in the head
Along the side of the highway a few weeks ago
And I guess they're burying him too

I was told later that the green Ford SUV
Driving ahead of us in the adjacent lane
Drifted onto the left shoulder of the highway and then over corrected
Neither of us saw it
What we did see was a fluid dance put on eloquently by the floating vehicle
As the SUV swerved to the right
It flipped itself airborne
And crossed directly over the car in front of us
As if it were the sun rising and falling in the sky
As it skidded to the right
A feeble guardrail cowered and gave way to the charging vehicle
It disappeared into the depths of a forested ravine
Speechless my friend applied the brakes
And we pulled off onto the shoulder
I remember an encompassing silence at the scene

As we exited my car scores of daytime traffic roared past us
But my senses registered hardly a sound
It was as if the cars were a moving backdrop to a silent movie

We instinctively ran toward the punctured rail not knowing what to expect
But we faltered
It was not anything seen
But what was heard that gripped our chests
Whispered through the oaks and dense foliage
The shrill cry of an infant floated up from the ravine
The cries were not of hunger or of a scraped knee
They were the manifestation of pure engulfing terror

At the bottom of the cliff lay a mangled corpse of a car
Pinned upside down against a tree
A mother stood holding her inconsolable child
While two other bodies lay sprawled on the ground like wreckage

Upon reaching the first one
I noticed her leg and foot at an angle pointing up toward her shoulder
She was very pale and spoke to me in broken English
I wrapped my shirt around her bleeding leg and told her that she would be fine
I did not believe it

Others began to trickle down the slope to help us
I remember walking to check on the others who were injured
There were five or six all together
A man with the smell of alcohol on his breath tripped and fell in front of me
He called me amigo and asked for a hand
He looked to be from the party involved in the accident
And he looked uninjured
With the way things go in this world
My guess is that he was driving

As the ambulance and EMS crew arrived
We were relieved of our duties
The child was strapped into his car seat
And only had a minor laceration to his head

At the top we were greeted with a small amount of applause by bystanders
Though we did no heroic act
We acted merely on unadulterated human instinct

On my way to wash the blood from my hands and retrieve a new shirt
I passed by a group of three state policemen who were among the first responders
They talked in a close circle
I heard the one talk about the casino last night
And how he slept with that skinny Latino girl he met a few weeks ago

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