The Accident

This story follows multiple narratives. It revolves around three characters- X, Y, and Z, and what they feel as they are brought together by an accident.

Three people, three emotions– triumph, experience, and loss.

X

The shop wasn’t half as full as the previous, yet I knew I could not stand another second at its doorway. My heart was palpitating but I really needed that cigarette. I took a step inside the shop when I heard the sound of the crash.

Everyone was running out towards the road. Two mangled cars were setting off smoke and shrieked onlookers were too stunned to do anything.

“Move aside, I know CPR,” said someone in the distance.

While everyone rushed towards the accident, I was standing still. I was petrified, actually. My anthrophobia prevented me from taking another step. I wanted to, I wanted to help. But my feet would not move.

Y

“You can take this too. It is just the same as the previous one, honey,” I said to my wife. She and I were out on a shopping spree after my I ‘wronged’ my wife in an argument. She and I were always on the edge these days. Just making each day pass itself, without doing much. We were falling out of love, maybe. And I was too tired to try.

“It is not as nice as the one before. Or the one before that was better? Dear, what about this?” she asked me; I was too distracted.

Suddenly, I heard a screech of brakes and a crash.

I was dashing across the street, towards the victim. I pulled him out- his face was charred.

“Move aside, I know CPR,” said someone and pushed me aside.

“But what about the other car?” I yelled to the guy; he wasn’t listening. I ran towards the other end, looking at the mangled mess of metal. The smoke was thick but I saw through a hand. I pulled at it and I felt it squeeze my hand.

“I need some help here!” I yelled.

Z

I guess this was it. My life, just over. For all I know, I can say that I saw this coming. It wasn’t just waking up one night realizing that my life right now wasn’t just a dress rehearsal for something bigger. I knew it all along. Whatever I’d done did not matter, whatever I was going to won’t ever. I wasn’t going anywhere and I guess my depression could swallow me whole.

I felt the breeze as I sat on the bridge. This was it.

I had attempted suicide before and as you know it, I failed. A blade, pills, bathtub. But now I was really sad. Because I was a failure even at dying. So this was it; to end it all.

I took a deep breath. And then I heard a violent crash.

I turned around and I saw an accident take place. Without knowing what came over me, I started to run towards it.

There were bystanders and I was one of them. Two men were working on both sides, and I was standing with nothing to do. And then I noticed something strange. I, somehow beyond the wreckage, could recognize the pearl gray paint of the car. It was familiar. Horrified for what was to come, I slowly crept across the crowd towards the car, searching. Searching for a snowglobe on the dashboard, with hope that I don’t find it.

Closer, closer.

I saw a face. I screamed.

 

X

I was standing in the middle of the road, thinking of something to do. My heart was still beating just as loudly and I was biting my lips till they bled. I was trying to maintain a perfect distance from the people. They were crying, stunned, shocked and dismayed. People who were coming closer to me were making me insane. I refrained from making any sort of visual contact with people.

The moment I thought of leaving the scene, I spotted something. It was a body. And she was coming right at me. She was covered in blood and her flesh was burnt.

“Help me,” she said to me.

My body was shaking and I was crying. I didn’t want her to come to me; I couldn’t run either. I was shaking, trembling. She came to me, and fell on me.

Y

“Come on, man. Don’t give up,” I said to the victim. I pulled him out of the wreckage and towards safety. His face was charred.

All of a sudden, I heard a woman’s cry. She was crying and screaming.

“Matt, Matt!!” she cried as she fell to her knees beside me. “Matty!”

“I am sorry, Matty! Are you okay?” she broke down completely.

I felt myself giving up on the man; there wasn’t much to be done. I said my prayers and felt for a pulse. I put my fingers on his neck, hoping for a throb. I felt something faint, but I wasn’t sure.

“Don’t give up man. Help is on its way,” I said to him.

And then, I wasn’t sure what it was but, he smiled at me. I felt him squeeze my hand and then he shut his eyes.
“No, man. No,” I said to him.

“No! No!” the woman screamed.

“Coming through,” said an EMT.
“What are his vitals?” another asked.
“Nothing. No pulse. Take him to the ambulance!”

They put him on a stretcher and took him to the ambulance. The woman was crying.

“They are doing everything they can,” I said to her. She could not be consoled.

“Help! Somebody please!” someone screamed from afar.

X

The burnt girl had come to me and I was terrified.

“Help!” I screamed. “Help! Somebody please!”

People came running. But the girl won’t let me go.

“Ma’am you’ll have to come with us,” said an EMT.
“But I… I…” I fumbled. “I don’t know her.”
“Ma’am you have to come with us,” he said and took my arm.
“Don’t touch me!! Don’t! Don’t!” I screamed; others were shrieked. “Okay, I’ll go.”

They took me and a girl into an ambulance and they assessed the burnt girl.

We rode to the hospital.

______________________

Y

“It’s going to be okay,” I said to her; we were riding in the ambulance together.

She was only crying and I did not know what to say.

I myself was broken inside. A man had died in my arms today. He was dead, maybe she didn’t realize that and I did not have it in me to tell her the same. I wanted her to have that hope, for whatever time that was left.

I didn’t know what I felt right then, but I knew it was something I’d never felt before.

That it was time to give importance to the little things. And I’d been shutting my eyes before my face hit the water, when I realized, it is the slap of water to the skin that makes it worthwhile.

Z

I held Matty’s hand; it felt cold. I was terrified.

“It’s going to be okay,” the man said.

I could only cry. He did not know what I was going through. I don’t even know who he was. But he was here, with me now and I really needed some help.

I was blaming myself.

Matty was my younger brother. But I couldn’t tell that I was an elder sister to him. I was always broken and depressed and it somehow affected him too. He felt for me. He wanted me to get help. And I was always too angry to listen to him.

Maybe he read my suicide note, I thought. And then he maybe raced to save me.

We reached the hospital and they took him away. Leaving me to my thoughts of blame.

The doctors re-emerged from the halls– they did not have good news. Matty was no more.
“I am sorry. We did everything we could. His injuries were too severe,” the doctor said and I broke down.

The man from before was with me, holding me and he sat me down.
“I became the end of him,” I said.
“Don’t… don’t blame yourself,” he said.
“But it was… it was all my fault.”

I lost my brother. And it presented itself as a huge knife in my chest, twisting and turning with every heartbeat– a souvenir to all my mistakes. Mistakes don’t affect only the ones who make them, but falls hard on the ones who care the most.

X

We reached the hospital and I was quickly pushed aside by the doctors. They took away the girl and I was asked to wait.

To me, a hospital was terrifying. I was more scared than before. There were people all around, moving here and there. All I could do was hope that no one would bump into me. I hated the sight of people, the noise in the hospital and the fact that there were dying people all around.

A scared woman was wandering the halls. And then she came to me.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you, thank you.”

I screamed.

She put her arms around me, hugging me for saving her daughter. And I screamed. It had definitely scared her, my screaming, but she was overcome with happiness.
“Thank you for saving my daughter,” she said and I just nodded.
And for the first time, I felt someone’s embrace. I didn’t feel angry or anxious or scared. It felt… okay.

The burnt girl was the daughter of one of the victims. She was thrown out of the car and I was the only one who got to her.

I saved a life, and felt myself coming out of the terrors I’d lived in my whole life.

__END__