Friday, February 10, 2006

In My Time of Dying

The photo was taken that night – the night the young man died. The photo of the crash was taken before the truck came and carried that mangled wreck of steel away. The photo was taken before the glass and plastic were swept up and the oil, the water and blood were hosed down the drain. By morning the whole scene had changed, no one driving past the site knew what had happened there that night.

Inexperience played a part, and speed of course. The music was too loud; he didn’t hear the road noise change as he hit gravel. When he finally realised he was off the road it was too late. He touched the breaks, lost traction and ended up going sideways. Sideways towards a power pole

The power pole was 30 meters away when he saw it through the driver’s side window.

If vehicle ‘A’ is travelling at 27.7 meters per second towards object ‘B’ how long before the two objects meet?

In that second and a bit before his car slammed side on in to the power pole, instantly breaking his neck, most of his ribs and pulverising his right arm, before this happened he thought, “I’m going to hit it.”

The impact destroyed the cars drive train but the engine, the headlights and the loud music kept going. His last thoughts were, “This can’t happen to me, Dad is going to kill me, am I going to die here, will anyone remember me, will I remember me”.

He died in the darkness just as the flashing lights and the photographer arrived.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

See how seriously the writer takes the moments of his story. He moves across them wondering what it would be like to be there as an observer but also as the participant. He can't escape but he freezes the frames to allow for reflection, detatchment and an almost inadvertant lightness. The result is arresting and enigmatic. The reader wants to stay for more.