....."I should have left ten minutes earlier." The complaint was made to no one within earshot, but he so needed the catharsis of venting his frustrations that the lack of an audience simply did not matter. He had spent that ten minutes practicing in front of the mirror for his interview between razor strokes, anyhow, with barely more company in the mirror. Flip the turn signal; slow, come to a complete stop. No oncoming traffic, but still stop. Brake pedal down, pause, release, accelerate. Now, where did they hide the speed limit sign? They never have enough of the damned things up. There, thirty-five. That meant forty. Years of driving had shown him that most roads feel roughly five miles an hour too slow and that rare was the highway patrolman who would pull someone over for just a five mile discrepancy, especially someone in a respectable grey Cadillac like the one he was driving, with its only-two-days'-old coat of wax and confident chrome.

.....The words of his father ran through his head, as important and reliable as the sun's rise in the east, motivating and energizing any with mind enough to heed it, and he repeated those words aloud to himself - "Early is on time, on time is late." The dashboard clock declared 9:25AM - the meeting was at 9:30AM. He knew by the twisting of his insides that the latter "on time" was the best he could achieve, running behind schedule as he was, his father's advice turning into an admonishment with every stern repetition filtering through his memory's voice. This nauseated him; he lifted his hand to his mouth to stifle a small, bile-drenched reflux. Bitterly, he mumbled to himself, mumbled of his chances for the promotion failing, of his wrenching stomach, mumbled a whimsical wish to just magically appear at the bank's parking lot before drowning the sour taste in his mouth with his smooth, cylindrical metal coffee thermos' contents. An appreciative sigh came in a warm breath - black, with a pile of sugar. There must be a way I can get there sooner. I'm just - what? - a couple miles away? He wrung the steering wheel with his hands, struggled to relax. Ahead, a rapidly approaching string of traffic lights, his approach to town - he could make it. A smile played over his face.

.....No one was around. Barely a bird alighted along the power lines, even. The light went red, surely one of those damned timed lights, and he, his foot poised to brake, turned his knee and instead applied the gas. The light disappeared overhead, staring down with its red glow, and the intersection steadily became scenery in his rear-view mirror. "That's a minute or two off," he said, a crooked grin on him as he rounded the oncoming corner and switched to the right lane for his exit, local farmers' cotton crops a wash of white and dark as he sped passed.

.....A sound like screaming and squealing and something unearthly filled the air, saturated his ears; he was jerked to his right, then rebounded left, slammed into his window and, as the sound of the window's fracture hit his ear, his face found the steering wheel. He felt his pants dampen, and his stomach churned as if synchronized with the spin of his car. The whispered moan of metal rose above the wail of rubber on asphalt as the world slowed and slurred to a blur, then the wail disappeared and a muffled grind replaced it. A final, glorious thunk, the glittering sound of glass, then nothing. Long moments; slowly, pain became consciousness, which begat the realization that he had been hit.

.....His neck agonized to move, to look around. Wrists burned. A statue finding life, motion came to sluggishly to his surely bruising legs; he breathed deeply and lurched in his seat. With a groan he raised his head, drunken with adrenaline, anxiety, discomfort and fear. Yes, he had been hit. Through the spider web of cracked glass and smoke he saw his partner in collision, bound tightly to the seat of his blue '93 Ford Mustang and, in all appearances, injured and unconscious.

.....The engine labored to move, grunting and clanking, but the respectable grey Cadillac would stay in its ditch. The car, the engine. Gasoline. The key. A momentary struggle with the buckle of his seat-belt later, he clenched his teeth and darkening eyes, twisted his inflamed wrist - the engine died; the key was freed. His pants clung to him, wet, damp, warm. The smell. "Ah hell." That subtle, salty scent of urine in the car's warped cabin, he frowned, his jaw tightened. Of course I had to piss myself. A wreck wasn't enough. Now what? He remembered his first grade year in Elementary school, when he had wet himself waiting for recess, waiting to be allowed to go to the restroom. He had been ashamed then, even though no one had laughed, and he was ashamed now. What to do - the coffee. The coffee thermos lay on the floor of the passenger side. He leaned, an agonized, wracking lean, and pulled the thermos up, then raised himself to douse his groin and left pants leg, grimacing at the heat. A small smile curved his bleeding lip. He discarded the thermos. He had only spilled his coffee.

.....From outside, in the distance, a shout came to him; a woman. "Oh, dear God! I'll call for help!" she called, punctuating her cry a second later with the faint, rattled closure of a screen door. There, the house. he thought, staring into the field, making out a modest farm home through bleary eyes. A glance to the Mustang - its driver still inside, covered in shimmering glass.

.....It was time to get out of the car.

.....The door refused all efforts to open at first, taking a few batterings of his battered shoulder to loosen it enough to open. Once outside, pain in his ankles became noticeable amid that of his face, wrists, neck - aching, all over. His joints performed with all the sensations of flames and nails, and surely his clavicle had broken, maybe a rib. He leaned against his car, slowly advancing on limping legs toward the Mustang. He pushed himself from his car, ground his teeth as he took the twelve steps needed to reach the other vehicle. The driver was young, probably just got his license. "Hey, kid?" The Mustang's driver stirred slightly, moaned something and his head loosely lolled back on his shoulder, eyes fluttering, though staying closed. Arms were obviously broken, reshaped into a crumpled, purpling curvatures, and his face near to shattered with its jaw hanging open, inlaid with broken teeth and a steady trickle of blood that soaked the front of his shirt. "Hey, kid, my name's John. What's yours?" He felt the boy's neck, and it gave a little. The boy winced a full-body wince, but his pulse was steady. "Help is on the way, kid." Labored breathing came as the only reply.

.....Something green flickered in the corner of John's eye, began reeling in his attention. He kept his hand to the boy's neck, kept a feel on the pulse as he sought the green light. A clock, digital, bright - 9:36 PM. Late. Late. And that clock is wrong, it is still morning. John stared at the clock, and he scowled and he swore without word or thought, straining his face into a sneer so sharp he pulled the tear in his lip open again and renewed its bleeding. He felt dizzy, felt broken, felt angry. It was unfair. It was all so unfair. He threw his attention back to the boy and jerked his arm; there, a muffled popping sound, the boy's right leg kicked. John turned to look at the boy, kept his hand to his neck, and waited... The pulse weakened, slowed, came to a complete stop. Sirens in the distance. An engine approaching.

.....John released the boy's neck, turned around and leaned against the crumpled blue chassis of the Mustang. The ambulance pulled to the road's side, halted, and two men leapt from its doors, one lean, the other well-muscled. One man, the latter of the two, helped John to the ambulance, the other dashed to the boy. "I think he's gone," John choked, answering the unasked, inevitable question as the lean man reached out and touched the broken neck of the dead boy in the broken blue car.

idgonemad.net
Copyright information is found here.