That Damn Wreck (fiction)

This starts before the dust storm. The flash of blue, black, gray and then red, hasn't happened yet. The terrible sounds and squeals hadn't hit my ear yet. this starts before the dust storm.

It was October, but the snow hadn't came yet. It was a brilliant day. the bus ride from Northeast Elementary School to our house was 50 minutes long. On the bus i sat next to Lonny. Lonny was in my class and i think he was retarded. He wore thick glasses, like me, but they didn't help him read, they helped him see things that were far away. my glasses helped me read, i could see things far away just fine. Lonny lived up the road from us, it was a gravel road but the county of Mills workers didn't take care of it, so it didn't have very many rocks on it. I often would day dream out the window of the large school bus that i could roller skate all the way to town on the flat un-rocky gravel road. but i didn't like to roller skate. Lonny liked to roller skate, but then again Lonny also liked to eat crayons and then vomit them on the bus floor.

The last 5 minutes of the bus ride home were my favorite. There was a large hill a few miles from my house and at the base of the hill was a bridge. This was a very small rickety bridge, and our bus driver, Duane, would speed down the hill and i would jump up and down in the back seat until the bus hit the bridge and would bounce against the boards. This would send me high into the air. It was the best part of the afternoon, and i always looked forward. I never worried about the bus crashing, or falling off the bridge. It was like my own personal roller coaster, even though i didn't like roller coaster. Lonny liked roller coasters, but then again Lonny liked to put his index finger inside his asshole.

When the bus finally got to my house, i was excited. The day was beautiful, and i wanted to immediately start playing in the yard. We had a giant yard, and i had many toy trucks. I had tonka trunks, i had dump trucks, road graders, bob cats, and i even had the green road layer that had a large roll of plastic road that it layed. I never really played with it, because it was green, not yellow, and because the road was useless.

I walked up our driveway, which had large deep holes in it, that looked like tiny ravines. To my mothers escort, these ravines were hell, but to me, the ravines were my own personal grand canyon. I would walk up through them and pretend i was a giant walking. I was paul bunyon, i was untouchable, i was happy. then i saw my dad coming down the road in his red truck, which i called a pick-up truck, because he called it a pick-up truck.

When he pulled in the driveway he told me to get my sister, who was to young to go to school and my mother and have them come out to the truck because we were going to go into town. I went in the house, which was a giant A-Frame where you could step right up on to the roof from the grass. This was great in the summers for watching fire works, because on a clear night we could see all thew ay to Omaha. This was also great, because anytime my parents were not home, i could play with my trucks on the roof, which to me was the most sneaky thing in the world.

We all got in the red pickup truck, and Dad said we were going to into town to get dinner. We usually ate dinner at home, and it was usually cooked by my mother, not by strangers, so i was still excited. My dad was driving, and between him and I was my sister. She was only 5 years old, and she wouldn't even turn 6 for another month. My mother was sitting to the left of me, she was taking up a lot of room, because she was pregnant. I didn't understand pregnacy, but I did know that it meant i was going to have a little brother or sister and that was a good thing.
My father wasn't my father. He was my father, in the sense that he was married to my mother and that i called him dad, but he wasn't my father in the sense that he was named Steve and my real father was named David. I also knew he wasn't my real father because I knew my mother longer than he did and we had different last names. My mom also had the same different last name as my father. My sister and I had the same last name too. It was the same last name as Fred, our "other" father who wasn't our "father". I often wondered what the baby in my mothers stomach's last name would be.

As we were on the road we passed Lonny's house, I expected to see him out in the yard playing with some toy trucks, but instead he was lay in the grass letting a cat sit on his face. If i were him, i'd be playing with trucks, but instead, I was going to town to get dinner with my family. My dad was talking to my mother about how some guy at work was a really funny. I didn't know what his job was, but i knew it had something to do with cows. I didn't like cows. they never really bothered me but I really liked pigs, and I felt you could only like one. just the same as i liked dogs not cats. which is another reason why I wouldn't let a cat lay on my face the way Lonny did. and I really thought Lonny was retarded.

We were coming on the straight away, by the houses where the kid whos name is steven but spelled with ph instead of a v lives, and my dad turned the radio up. the song on the radio was by randy travis. I loved hearing Randy Travis, because his voice sounded like he was trying not to sing but instead make a funny sound. I looked over at my sister, and she was counting on her fingers, i taught her how to count to 5, and so now thats all she did. my mom was singing along with the radio, and my dad was just driving. I assumed driving the pickup truck was hard, because there was extra pedals and gear shifters. it was cramped on the seat, but i felt comfortable. i leaned my head back so i could see the sky out the back window and started to day dream about what i would eat when we got to the restaurant.

This is when the terrible sounds hit my ear. I jerked my head forward, and all i saw was the dust storm. It was terrible.like driving through a fire only there was no smell of smoke. My father had one hand on the steering wheel and the other was stretched across my sister and i and holding my mothers hand. The pickup was spinning and we were no longer on the road but in the ditch. my sister was screaming, my father was cursing, and my mom was silent. i looked around and my father was still bringing the car to stop. and then all at once the car stopped, the engine died, and we were no longer going to town to get dinner.

Right before the car stopped, I closed my eyes tightly.then i heard the door open and i could tell that my sister and my dad were no longer in the car. the door was still open and i could hear the dinging of the door ajar bell. i opened my eyes again, and my mother was no longer sitting on the seat next to me. she was on the floor curled into a tight ball and she had apparently gone to sleep. I then realized that my glasses were very broken, and i wouldn't be able to use them to see far or near anymore.. There was also something on them, that i couldn't figure out what was. It was red like the color of the truck, so i assume it was the paint from the truck.

This was after the dust storm had settled. I heard my sister screaming far in the distance, and when i listened hard i could hear a car radio. it wasn't coming from our speakers though, i even reached out to turn our knob up and sure enough, it didn't make the music any louder. I was a little glad that it didn't get louder, because it probably would have woken my mother up, and my dad has told me that its not nice to wake a pregnant women when shes napping. i reached up for the rear view mirror and i was going to turn it so i could see how goofy i looked with broken glasses, but i knew that it would make my father angry if i moved the mirror so instead i slid over a little and looked at it, only to see that there was tons of red paint from the truck all over my face. and it was runny, like pancake syrup.

Then my father appeared in the door of the truck and grabbed me, he was holding me tightly, tighter than he'd ever hugged me before and he ran with me, across the road which had enough gravel on it at this point roller skating would be a little harder, and sat me next to my sister in the grass. he told me to stay there, and i told him i would. he was very angry about something. not so much angry as excited. Not the way i was excited about playing with my trucks or excited about having strangers cook my food, but excited in a different way. he ran over to the truck and and pulled my mom out of it. She didn't even wake up, i thought her dream must be good if she didn't wanna come out of it. I also though how silly it was that my dad was going to wake her up after he warned me not too.

I looked at my sister and she was pale, she was as white as the sheets on my parents bed. I imagined that people would drive by and see the two of us and wonder what was going on. I also imagined we had another person with us, who looked blue. Because my sister was very white, i was covered in paint from the truck and a blue person would make us look just like a flag. and i think that would look neat. i would hope someone would take a picture and it would get in a magazine.

My dad started to drag my mother across the gravelly road and yelled at me to come help him, so i jumped up and grabbed my moms feet. when i walked on the gravel i realized there was no way i could ever roller skate on it. there were tiny rocks you couldn't see that would make it really hard. we layed my mother in the grass next to where my sister was sitting and my dad sat with us. he asked if i was in pain, and i said no. but i did have a sudden headache. he was cradling my mothers head and trying to wake her up. i almost told him to let her sleep, she must be tired, but my sister talked first.

She said, "who's in the back seat?" and i giggled, the truck didn't have a back seat, then she pointed past us and i noticed for the first time where the music was coming from. there was a broken blue mess of a car further down the road in the ditch. it looked like someone had taken a car and wadded it up into a ball. my dad told her that no one was in the backseat and he told my mom that we were all ok, but that it was terrible. He kept saying "this is terrible, this is terrible." I looked up at the sky, and then all around, at my father, my mother, my sister, our truck, and the blue mess of a car, and i realized exactly what had happened. we were in a car accident. that's when i closed my eyes and took a nap.

I woke up and was at a hospital. my sister was in the room with me, but she wasnt in a bed like me. my dad and here were standing next to each other and they were really happy i woke up. my grandparents were also there, which i liked cause they were fun. and my dad told his dad, who i called grandpa, that the baby was fine and that they wouldn't take it ceraian. everyone was very happy in the room. except my dad. he looked like someone had told him to smile even when he didn't want to. my sister came over to me and grabbed my hand and said that mom was fine. I was happy. I didn't know anything was wrong with her, but it was good to know she was fine. Then she said "the lady died." and i asked what lady, and she said the lady in the blue car. She died and went to heaven with god and Jesus. I was really intrigued by this. someone died. and everyone in the room had started talking and everyone looked less happy. no one had expressions at all. It looked like a bunch of people wearing Halloween masks of people with no faces.

Then my sister said, like she said on the side of the road, that there was someone in the back seat who died too. and my dad quickly corrected her saying there wasn't anyone in the back seat o fthe car. that just the lady was dead. but my sister knew better. she saw it and she told all of us that she saw someone in the back seat, and that they were small and not moving. i wondered if it was a little kid like us, maybe someone from class. .

My father told my grandfather that he had ran over to the car while holding her and looked in to see that the women had been decapitated in the accident. he then leaned in and whispered something to my grandfather and my grandfathers face cringed like he was eating a grapefruit. then my sister again told me that she saw a person in the back seat. She wasn't happy or sad, she was just telling me. As if she was telling me about something she saw on tv. i laid back and went back to sleep and I dreamt about the accident. I dreamed that I was my sister and I had seen the lady in the car without her head, but I didn't see anyone in the back seat. Instead, i saw the woman's head. and she was crying. I felt really bad looking, but i also felt really happy that her face wasn't my mothers.

I woke up and everyone was still in the room, my grandfather hugged me the way he did so that he seemed like the largest person in the world, and my grandma kissed me and my sister a lot. I noticed my mom was now in the room in a bed like me, she was reading and had tears in her eyes. i wondered if what she was reading was sad, or if she was crying about the women from my dream, the women from the accident. Then a nurse came in and had a tray on wheels, it wheeled right over my bed, and it smelled like chicken. I took the top off and it was a piece of chicken, some veggies, some fruit, and french fries, but I wasn't hungry anymore.

So I just laid there and thought. I think this was the first time I ever thought like an adult, because I was thinking about life and death, and I had never thought of that before. The dust storm was over, and I wasn't the same as I was before it. When I road the bus with Lonny now, I'd feel different. I thought everything would feel different. And it did.