Eyes open.
I see the interior of a car door, it’s shape dismantled by whatever sudden impact had struck it all the while I had slept. Or been awake. Some sort of light is shining on it, but I refrain from looking up to see where this heavenly luminescence hails from. There’s a sharp pain in the center of my forehead, and at first I attempt to reach up to feel for a wound, but my arm immediately sears with pain, not willing to move. Broken.
Eyes close.
I feel something
Photo credit: Casey P., Marblehead, MA
Author's comments about this article:
wrote it because i was inspired by a book.
encrusted around the corner of my eye. I make a wincing face, feeling it crack upon my skin, also sensing it trailing down my forehead and my cheek. Dried blood, I thought. No, I knew. I could tell from the taste in my mouth; I didn’t even want to open my eyes to see what surrounded me, other than the remains of something I can’t remember, but still know is just about as bad as it can be.

Every breath I breathe in seems to be harder to accomplish, like I actually have to think about breathing in order for it to be done. Every single inch I move during each breath seems painful, most likely because it is painful, but it’s hard to tell. I almost feel numb, feeling so much physical pain at once, and I just want to go back to sleep. No, not back to sleep; I was never asleep. I was unconscious.

Tears begin to swell up in my eyes, begging me to cry, but I manage to fight it back. Not that it’s a good thing to hold it back, but in this situation I just want peace. I don’t want to hear the sounds of my own weeping, the sounds of me growing weaker than I have already become. With this sense of exhaustion, I also feel that crying might just make me feel the urge to vomit. I can imagine it in my head, vomiting my own blood all over the place, eventually drowning in it as it continues to flow, nonstop.

I cough. My chest is overwhelmed with a burning sensation, as if someone within my body is lighting candles inside of me, somewhere deep beneath my skin. It’s almost as if I could feel the bone, the muscle,all melting away, dripping onto the floor of the car in thick, heavy globs of human flesh. I could feel the hole in my chest where my heart would be, burned open.

Suddenly, it hits me that there is a distinct pitter-patter of rain showering the windshield of the car, as well as the rest of the car and the world around it. The world around me. I can’t see it, but I know it’s there. I haven’t looked yet out to see it, but still, I know it’s there. However, I don’t feel the need, nor the desire, to look. I can only imagine the damage done around me. The damage done to me.

I breathe in the smell of the moist air through my nose, feeling the wind winding and turning through the chasms of dried blood stuck up there in my nostrils, and it smells like something familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it. It’s almost as if I can remember something vital, but it’s not clear to me. Not yet.

Eyes open.

I finally lift my head from the steering wheel to become aware of everything that’s around me. The car’s a total wreck, and I can see through the windshield that the front of the car seems as though it’s wrapping around the tree that it slammed into. The beam from the streetlight above shows me this, as well as the spider web cracks that stain the windshield, blocking my vision of the view outside, yet still baring enough vision to see what’s outside.

To my left, the destroyed car door displays a still closed window that seems to be untouched, miraculously. The same applies to the right, back, and rear windows. Beyond these windows is the world beyond the interior of the vehicle, dark and mysterious. Now looking around, I realize that the streetlight is, in fact, the only one on the abandoned road, like it got up knew I would be here, in need of it’s comfort.

The road is bordered by woods on each side, which grow more daunting by every second I continue to stay lay. I can’t get up just yet. I need to regain strength and some sense of motivation. I need to see myself.

The rearview mirror is on the floor, in front of the passenger seat. I struggle to reach for it, bearing aching and sharp pains as I make every effort to keep my left arm from moving. I grab a hold of the mirror, picking it up. I sit up and hold the mirror in front of my face, making it known that there was, indeed, blood dripping down my face from a rather large gash just above my right eyebrow, still glistening with blood surfacing from the already scabbing wound. It reminds me of a volcano, as if the blood had, at one point, erupted from this cut in my head, now drying over itself in order to close the tip of the volcano.

I look into my bloodshot eyes, the pupils dilated, almost shadowing the entire irises. I can’t see what color they are. I look at my nose, and see the dried blood around the outer circle of the nostrils. I look at my mouth, and see a scab where the lip was, at one point, split open. I finish looking at my hideous face.

Before deciding to exit the car, I feel the need to look around a bit more. My hand reaches to open the glove box and inside there is a wallet. Opening the wallet, I find money. Just money. There is no license, no credit cards, no social security card. I take the money out, counting it. In the midst of counting, a yellow piece of paper falls from in between two twenty dollar bills. On this yellow piece of paper was a single word. I read aloud, “Walk.” I found this rather odd, but also annoying, like I couldn’t make the guess that I hadn’t had the brain to get up and walk. But, still, who left this here?

Four hundred and forty one dollars.

I put the money back in the wallet, which I then put in my right front pocket. I feel my left pocket, just to see if anything is in it, but there is nothing. I reach my hand over my body to the driver seat door’s handle. At first I try to just push it open, but it doesn’t open fully. After kicking it about three times at full force, it jolts out quickly to a roll of thunder from above.

Turning my body to let my feet out, my left arm grazes the seat, providing more pain. I tremble, wincing, but continue to plant my feet on the ground in from of me. I stand, and feel the cold air around me, then striking my body at full force. Shivering, I grab my left arm to cradle it up against my chest with my right, leaving the car, keys still in the ignition. I walk in the direction that the cars seems to have been heading, since that is probably where I was trying to go.

Walking, I look ahead into the darkness as the light from the streetlight grows dimmer, looming farther in the distance. What had at first comforted me now taunts me as I limp away, abandoning that sense of security. I look back to review the car and the light, and then turn my head forward, towards the horror of the nothing ahead of me.

Pitch black. There is no moonlight to show me a way, for the rain clouds forbid this. I must rely on my feet, walking only on the asphalt and away from any feeling of gravel under me. The rain seems to fall harder, stinging my broken arm and some wound in the back of my head that I did not previously notice. God, what the heck happened? I think to myself.

I continue to walk, scared, but trying to divert my mind from fear by searching for any bit of remembrance of what had happened, what had gotten me into such a horrible accident. Nothing comes to mind. Maybe I was drinking; maybe that’s why my mind is so hazy. Though, I don’t drink, let alone drink and operate a vehicle. I know that much.