So yesterday was the first day of school since Spring Break. I can't say that I was the most excited, but nonetheless, I had to go. So that morning I got dressed, grabbed a cup of coffee and packed up the school bag with pencils and binders and knitting needles. As I looked in the mirror, I noticed something. My side braid and eye glasses made me look a little like a hipster. Grab the slouchy hat. So I grabbed the slouchy hat. After that, I was out the door and in the car where my mom was waiting. I jumped in the passenger seat and as she rolled out of the driveway, I picked a song to play.
The 45 minute commute to my school had begun.
We were jumping through Michael Buble songs as we neared the first of two roundabouts. I had been trying to find a new artist to play but, with a sudden addictive love for Michael, decided to leave it alone for a while and focus my attention instead, to the driver in front of us.
"Why aren't they going?" I asked my mom. In a roundabout, if someone is 1/4 of the circle away from you, you have the time and space to go and take your turn. Whomever was in front of us was clearly not acclimated to this knowledge, and was hesitating instead of driving. "Must be a new driver." I assumed immediately.
"You never know, they could have gotten into an accident." My ever-wise mother suggested. I wrote off her words.
"New driver." I said in a matter-of-fact way. After that, they drove on and I went back to song selecting. The conversation between us changed, and the woman driving in front of us was never mentioned again.
As we were driving the highway between the roundabouts I think I remember asking my mom to look at a picture for a moment. It only took a second, and we laughed, but when she looked back up I heard her cry out. I looked up right away and saw an SUV spinning at us from the opposing lane. We were hit nearly head on before I had the time for a single thought, let alone to register what was happening. There was a moment where I had blacked out, and when I came to the window was shattered and resembling a torn piece of paper. The airbags were deflated from use. I remember reaching out to touch them, but can't recall what it felt like.
Next to me I heard my mom say "Oh, Jesus", but not in the swearing way. Doors slammed shut and I looked over my shoulder, through a broken back window and saw five, maybe six men jump out of a truck. They ran over to the car and began tugging on all of the doors, but only one of them opened. They were shouting to each other in Russian, trying to figure out what to do. They decided to get my seat reclined, and I crawled out. As soon as I was out, my place was taken by one of the Russians. They were all over that car trying to help my mom who was stuck. Her feet were pinned from the dash and a few times she said it felt like they were burning. There was no fire though.
My mom was going to be okay. Knowing that, I decided to walk over to the other car and make sure that whoever was in there was okay too. Before I did though, I made eye contact with one of the Russians He seemed to be the younger of the group and had an odd facial expression on his face when we looked at each other. Not sure why, I decided to the other car. By this point, other people including an off duty EMT had stopped. A man was already at the SUV, and told me that she was okay. So I went back to the car. Two of the Russians were cleaning up the car shards and glass from the road with an industrial sized broom that came from somewhere. I don't think I'll ever know for sure where its origin was.
Surrounded by new people, I watched as traffic backed up. All of these people were going to be late from work because of one small sheet of ice. I thought about them while the fire truck and police cars and ambulances drove up after one another. By now the Russians had done anything they could, gave their reports as witnesses, and drove off like they did that kind of thing everyday. My mom was moved to the passenger seat, and none of the new people at the scene even knew that I had been in the car. They thought I was a bystander because of how easily I was standing.
No one talked to me while I watched.
The 45 minute commute to my school had begun.
We were jumping through Michael Buble songs as we neared the first of two roundabouts. I had been trying to find a new artist to play but, with a sudden addictive love for Michael, decided to leave it alone for a while and focus my attention instead, to the driver in front of us.
"Why aren't they going?" I asked my mom. In a roundabout, if someone is 1/4 of the circle away from you, you have the time and space to go and take your turn. Whomever was in front of us was clearly not acclimated to this knowledge, and was hesitating instead of driving. "Must be a new driver." I assumed immediately.
"You never know, they could have gotten into an accident." My ever-wise mother suggested. I wrote off her words.
"New driver." I said in a matter-of-fact way. After that, they drove on and I went back to song selecting. The conversation between us changed, and the woman driving in front of us was never mentioned again.
As we were driving the highway between the roundabouts I think I remember asking my mom to look at a picture for a moment. It only took a second, and we laughed, but when she looked back up I heard her cry out. I looked up right away and saw an SUV spinning at us from the opposing lane. We were hit nearly head on before I had the time for a single thought, let alone to register what was happening. There was a moment where I had blacked out, and when I came to the window was shattered and resembling a torn piece of paper. The airbags were deflated from use. I remember reaching out to touch them, but can't recall what it felt like.
Next to me I heard my mom say "Oh, Jesus", but not in the swearing way. Doors slammed shut and I looked over my shoulder, through a broken back window and saw five, maybe six men jump out of a truck. They ran over to the car and began tugging on all of the doors, but only one of them opened. They were shouting to each other in Russian, trying to figure out what to do. They decided to get my seat reclined, and I crawled out. As soon as I was out, my place was taken by one of the Russians. They were all over that car trying to help my mom who was stuck. Her feet were pinned from the dash and a few times she said it felt like they were burning. There was no fire though.
My mom was going to be okay. Knowing that, I decided to walk over to the other car and make sure that whoever was in there was okay too. Before I did though, I made eye contact with one of the Russians He seemed to be the younger of the group and had an odd facial expression on his face when we looked at each other. Not sure why, I decided to the other car. By this point, other people including an off duty EMT had stopped. A man was already at the SUV, and told me that she was okay. So I went back to the car. Two of the Russians were cleaning up the car shards and glass from the road with an industrial sized broom that came from somewhere. I don't think I'll ever know for sure where its origin was.
Surrounded by new people, I watched as traffic backed up. All of these people were going to be late from work because of one small sheet of ice. I thought about them while the fire truck and police cars and ambulances drove up after one another. By now the Russians had done anything they could, gave their reports as witnesses, and drove off like they did that kind of thing everyday. My mom was moved to the passenger seat, and none of the new people at the scene even knew that I had been in the car. They thought I was a bystander because of how easily I was standing.
No one talked to me while I watched.
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