For better or worse, here's a fragment I wrote a couple of weeks ago while running errands. I'd just passed the scene of my December 2000 car accident.

If you've never been in an automobile accident, you don't know what it's like.

You probably tell yourself things like: "If it happens to me, I'll have the presence of mind to turn like this or to brake like that", or "I'll see the skid as it happens and deftly respond by turning the wheel in the direction of the slide", or "I won't panic."

You probably tell yourself: "If it happens to me, I'll survive."

And when it happens, it's just like you knew it would be: surreal, everything gone quiet, the din muffled, as if the accident were taking place over there, across the median. Everything happens in slow motion.

It happens like this:

You're driving the speed limit, on the freeway, in the morning, not quite rush hour traffic. Your wife is with you, in the passenger's seat, reading in the dim first light of dawn.

Everything is normal.

Then, without warning, you catch a looming mass from the corner of your eye. You hear the sound of metal on metal (muffled, though, not as loud as one might expect). You feel the car lurch into the air (slowly though, not a sudden movement), and you think, "Hm, now that seems strange."

And you glance briefly at your wife who is only just now beginning to look up from her book.

Then your world becomes a riot of sounds, odors, confusion.

Everything's gone grey.

There's a dull thud, but you can't see what caused it, and something smacks you in the nose and you are spinning spinning spinning.

And just as suddenly as it began, everything comes to a halt.

You think, "Am I okay?"

And then you think, "I must be."

You think, "Is Kris okay?"

And then you look at her and you say, "Are you okay?"

But she doesn't answer. She doesn't move at all.

You move to touch her, but it hurts, your shoulder hurts, and Kris doesn't move and your heart begins to hurt because you know.

You know.

On this day at foldedspace.org

2005 — Animal Personalities   Our cats are filled with personality. I wonder if all animals exhibit individual personalities. Do chickens? Do hedgehogs? Do fish?

2004 — Ollie   My nephew, Michael, is surprisingly athletic.

2003 — Baudolino   In which my sub-conscious sings. In which football season is off to a fine start. In which Baudolino offers insights on truth.