Crossroads Morbidity

The big blue bus with the rusted, dented front – brown and mangled – was headed for me.  In a rush to get across the road, I had bent my ankle over my four-inch high heel, promptly landed on my bum in the middle of the road.  Somehow, the shock of it all wiped out any reaction time I had.  My head turned to the left, all I could see was blue, brown dents.  The world was rather quiet too – I think there might have been some people screaming or shouting, waving hands.  This guy, the driver of the blue-brown mass of tetanus potential couldn’t see me.

They say life flashes before your eyes moments before you face death.  I am not sure that there’s much to see in my eyes. Life was just beginning for me.  Finished school.  Great job.  Paying down my credit cards.  I was standing outside my sorry deer-in-headlights arrested body, waiting for a colorful death. 

Impact. Blood everywhere. 

I think I felt shooting pain everywhere as the mass of liquids and squishes that I am was splattered across the black tarmac.  Hot, melting, rusty bloody smells. 

Looking behind me, the shock on the woman’s face – the lady in red holding a young baby in her arms, shielding her eyes.  The gentleman in a suit who might have been running to pull me from the road, finally registering that I was not able to move. I felt the life suck out of me, ooze as the outside me was pulled to the dead me.

Zip. I was back and I was dying… blood was dripping from my eyes like tears.  

What a painful, painful death.

Crossing roads have a weird effect on me.  

I am approaching the road and these images flood my mind.  I wonder if this morbidity is a sign of silent suicidal thoughts.  I am crossing the road.  Safe on the other side.  I guess I didn’t die today.