How it all ends.

The pavement is damp under my black flats as I walk across the parking lot. The weather is freezing and mad at me as it whips around. Climbing into the Jeep, I situate before leaving. Heat on full blast. Coffee cup, still half full and chilled from the remnants of earlier chaos, slips into the holder. The music shuffles. I shuffle it again. Lately, I am becoming disinterested with many of my former music selections. Finally, a bearable song plays through the speakers. I put the car in reverse and leave.

As I pull out of the parking lot, my mind lingers on the act of reversing a car. I’m not a fan of reversing, but I thought that was due to laziness. Pulling forward is easier. You can see where you are going. Now, I realize, it’s not that I enjoy driving forward more, it’s that I despise reversing more. They are different, you see. One means I am taking pleasure in something, the other means I am avoiding the uncomfortable at all costs. You cannot see when you reverse. The way the wheel turns feels awkward and clunky under my hands when I reverse.

Then I am hit from the side. A single thought crosses my mind – You could have thought about anything before you died, and here you are thinking about reversing a car. My driver’s door crushed into me, my head slammed into the steering wheel. My brain processes images the best it can: tractor trailer, bridge, spinning, the leaves already yellow this time of year, red, everywhere red.

Suddenly the world ceases to spin. I am on my side, agony tearing it’s way through my right arm and across my back. Red. Red. Red. I can’t grasp anything, the red makes my hands slip away from all that is tangible. What is this red? What is going on? Why is my head sticky?

As I lay there, on my side, the Jeep playing one of my lesser favorites, the ground sparkles. Shattered glass reflects the sun back up into the sky. A mosaic of light against the black. I think a simple thought – What would have happened if you parked in a pull-through today and didn’t need the extra time to reverse?

The sirens are on their way. Colors mix in my vision, the red no longer distinguishable between suffering or saving. Thoughts all together escape my mind, and I drift into the yellow of the leaves.

…

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