Swish

Timeout - Eli

Getting into a life threatening car accident really can change a person's outlook on life. 

The second the screeching metal sounds hit my ears, I braced for the impact--something that I most likely shouldn't have done considering everything I'd heard about keeping your body loose and relaxed upon crashing, but I couldn't help it. 

It was so involuntary, the tensing up and waiting--waiting to feel that pain, to feel nothing, to be a numb, dead body flung from a moving car, soaring through a shattered windshield to be nothing more than bird food for the vultures. 

Dark line of thought, I know, but I couldn't get the imagery out of my head, imagining myself as a slab on a metal table under an autopsy light from one of those bad crime shows always on at midnight when I couldn't sleep. 

If that did happen to me, what would my legacy be? 

My little sister would still be trapped under my step father's thumb, and I would be nothing more than a good memory, moments of happiness stuck underneath the rubble of a terrible childhood.

Instead, I blacked out. 

One second we're flying through the air, flipping and turning and there was screaming, though I wasn't sure if it belonged to me or Matthew, and then everything was silent. 

Was this what death was like?  Silent, peaceful, cool and calm, I felt nothing and floated through a subconscious blackened world with no stars. 

And then a light was shining directly in my eyes and I flinched awake, my head encased in a neck brace and my body rolling on a gurney into the back of an ambulance, Matthew sitting with his head on his hands braced against his knees nearby. 

I had tried to insist that I was fine, I could move all fingers and toes and recite the alphabet backwards, and yes I knew what today was and who was president--but they didn't care. 

Protocol, they stated as their reasoning for hauling me into the back of an ambulance that would've been better served for someone else in a real emergency, but they never heard my pleas.

And then they inserted a needle into my arm, flooded my veins with something both hot and cold at the same time and distinctly tasting of copper, and then the world faded away again, the remembrance of what I was supposed to accomplish that night ringing in my ears like a laughing joker, reminding me just how badly I had failed.

Coming to the second time, I was happy to find my clothes nearby and Matthew on his phone at my bedside, most likely speaking to a manager, friend, coworker or family member of mine. 

"No, he's fine.  They ran all kinds of tests, he just needs to wake up from the sedation--aaannnd there he is.  No, he just opened his eyes.  Yeah, I'll keep you updated."

"What happened?"

My mouth could barely form sentences, and the garbled mess that came out sounded more like 'Wud apped' but thankfully Matthew had mastered the art of the gibberish language and immediately answered. 

"We were on our way to the game and we were sideswiped at an intersection.  It wasn't my fault, if that's what you were wondering.  The guy was drunk and he's fine, you had a little bump on the head but no concussion, you just passed out and you're lucky man.  So fucking lucky.  Doc said it could've gone the other way if both of us weren't wearing seatbelts.  The car flipped twice but we landed upright.  I just have a few cuts from the glass, but you made it out with a bump on the head.  A bump on the fucking head!  What guardian angel do we have to thank for that?"

Guardian angels weren't really what I was thinking.  More like ghosts watching from the great beyond, maybe hopefully possibly interfering when they wanted to, if that was even possible.