Massachusetts Turnpike

You are waiting for the crash, which surprisingly enough, is not your fault. You are doing close to eighty but that is not the problem. The problem is the guy in the Dodge truck, right up ahead of you, who pulled out into the middle lane without looking, directly into the path of the woman in the Volvo who you had sped up to get by. Technically the crash has already happened because the Volvo has already tickled the right ass cheek of the Dodge and with enough of a follow-up slap to put a bowling ball spin on the truck, and send it towards the place where your car is due to be. Technically the crash has already happened because a piece of the Dodge's taillight has been emancipated and is free to chase a corresponding piece of the Volvo's headlight across the air towards the median. Perhaps then it will be happy. Perhaps the two of them will be happy there together.

Nanoseconds pass. You are waiting for the crash because you are not yet involved. The front of your Mercedes has not yet French-kissed the wide red mouth of the Dodge's passenger-side door. There is still, you'll agree, a chance that danger may yet be averted. There may still be time to stand on the gas, swerve into the barrier (with barely a second thought about what it will do to the pewter metallic paint), and gun the Merc away into the Hollywood sunset, pausing only to flip your cell phone and calmly tell the state police that there's been a nasty accident. The other side of the argument is that the crash has already happened because your foot is snapping off the gas, doing a heel pivot and pressing down on the brake pedal as hard as it can. The crash has already happened because you already know the crash is going to kill you.

You would generally expect your life to flash before your eyes, for the horror of your innumerable sins to suddenly reveal itself to you. Instead, your death composes itself. You see that the impact with the Dodge will rapidly condense the front of the Merc. The hard forged steel will be as paper; like a failed design ripped from the drawing board, thoughtlessly compacted and tossed to one side. The paint will flake and be lifted away by the air; dead skin scratched loose.

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Photo © Chris Tighe