"...when the whole thing comes crashing down, don't ask me why."
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The car crumpled like a paper rough draft in a frustrated writer's hands. So much so, I felt the back seat hit my spine through the driver's seat as the windshield shattered in a kaleidoscope of highway colors. The crash was so loud as to be silent, like my surprised vocal chords- too shocked to permit a scream egress. I'm sure I died. But all evidence indicates I didn't.
I've never had anything like that happen to me. While I was driving on a long, Oklahoma freeway, a flash of a reality that didn't actually come to pass washed over me like bucket of ice water being dumped over me. So real, so vivid, I had a panic attack. Thankfully, the woman in my passenger seat immediately sensed something wrong and gently touched me in a soothing manner. Amazing what such a gesture from a female can do.
I briefly explained to her what happened.
She replied, with utter sincerity:
"Maybe it happened in a parallel reality. I'm glad it wasn't this one."
Maybe it was. Maybe it was a manifestation of my confusion at a world that, after only 45 years, I don't remotely recognize; a world so changed, twisted and mad that I find myself unable to watch movies made after 1950. That's an era that ended before my parents met, let alone had me as a resident. Maybe it was Death reminding me it's always there- waiting. Especially since he's passed his skeletal fingers by my cheek more times than I care to recount. Maybe it was all of them in some surreal configuration as if painted by Hieronymus Bosch.
Regardless, all of that ran through my thoughts faster than it took to type it by what can only be described as glacially slow by comparison. Regardless, I went quiet for a heartbeat, then said:
Me, too.
Then crossed myself.
Silently praying for whomever it may have been.
Ω
Click to viewThe car crumpled like a paper rough draft in a frustrated writer's hands. So much so, I felt the back seat hit my spine through the driver's seat as the windshield shattered in a kaleidoscope of highway colors. The crash was so loud as to be silent, like my surprised vocal chords- too shocked to permit a scream egress. I'm sure I died. But all evidence indicates I didn't.
I've never had anything like that happen to me. While I was driving on a long, Oklahoma freeway, a flash of a reality that didn't actually come to pass washed over me like bucket of ice water being dumped over me. So real, so vivid, I had a panic attack. Thankfully, the woman in my passenger seat immediately sensed something wrong and gently touched me in a soothing manner. Amazing what such a gesture from a female can do.
I briefly explained to her what happened.
She replied, with utter sincerity:
"Maybe it happened in a parallel reality. I'm glad it wasn't this one."
Maybe it was. Maybe it was a manifestation of my confusion at a world that, after only 45 years, I don't remotely recognize; a world so changed, twisted and mad that I find myself unable to watch movies made after 1950. That's an era that ended before my parents met, let alone had me as a resident. Maybe it was Death reminding me it's always there- waiting. Especially since he's passed his skeletal fingers by my cheek more times than I care to recount. Maybe it was all of them in some surreal configuration as if painted by Hieronymus Bosch.
Regardless, all of that ran through my thoughts faster than it took to type it by what can only be described as glacially slow by comparison. Regardless, I went quiet for a heartbeat, then said:
Me, too.
Then crossed myself.
Silently praying for whomever it may have been.
Ω