Not sure I'm ready to do this.

So, you want to know what the "not-so-terrifc $#!Ψ" was that I alluded to in my last post.

Well it's like this.
Thursday night I had to be someplace at 7:00 PM. On my way there, I hit a pedestrian with my car.

That's the essence of it. But it looks kind of dry just spewn out like that on the page. It doesn't capture the bowel-twisting horror of seeing someone in your headlights with their eyes wide and their hands up in a useless defensive gesture.

It doesn't tell you how it feels to know that there's absolutely nothing that can stop what's about to happen. It can't express the sick feeling of watching somebody tossed onto your hood.

And no matter what I write, there's no way I can tell you how it feels to watch that person's head meet your windshield and hear that dry, crisp "snap" sound as the Saf-T-Glass shatters in a star shape.

I remember seeing wrecks in the auto yards that were in damn fine-looking shape. Now it occurs to me that many of them had those stars in the windshield.

Perhaps I shouldn't be doing this. Maybe I shouldn't mention this to anyone. But let me tell you. if I don't get some of this out, I'm going to go ₤µ€λing crazy.

For the past couple of days I've been sort of living my life from the inside. Like there was a transparent wall between me and the world. Outside I probably look okay. Inside, my mind is doing these crazy loops.

Sometimes in the middle of doing something else I flash back to watching that poor woman hit my windshield. Other times I just stop what I'm doing while the thought "I hit a pedestrian" rings through my head like the chimes of doom.

There are moments when I can't forget the sight of her green Harrods handbag stuck under the driver's side front tire of the car.

Other times, I'm thankful. I could have been driving a rig. In which case she wouldn't be in the hospital right now; she'd be in the morgue. I could have run from the scene. I could have been going faster. I could have, I could have, I could have.


I could have killed her.

That's what it boils down to. She's in the hospital with a broken leg and possibly a concussion. This is called being lucky. I have to hold on to that. If I'd hit her with a car with a steel bumper instead of plastic, who knows what could have happened.

It wasn't even my car.

The owner of the car, who is somebody very special to me, has said that perhaps the car should be scrapped. It had mechanical problems already, and we'd been contemplating getting something else. It was a good car, and I'll miss it.

But right now I find myself avoiding driving it. In the aftermath of the accident I moved it off the road and walked home. The next morning I parked it at my place. Its owner hasn't seen it since the accident--has actually avoided seeing it.

There are so many things I'm thankful for.

I didn't kill her. That's number one. I feel $#!ΨΨy enough as it is.
I broke down on the side of the road and cried when the police and the firefighter told me she was going to be okay. It wasn't the first time, nor was it the last.

I was going to have a beer shortly before coming down the hill. I'm glad I didn't.

It wasn't my fault. That's a cringing, mean, small-souled-sounding thing to say, maybe, but it's the truth, and I'm oh-so-thankful for that.

The light was yellow when I actually made that left turn. I was starting from nearly a dead stop at the middle of the intersection, so I wasn't moving very fast. Of course, if the light for me was yellow, then the "Don't Walk" sign was long up.

"She appeared out of nowhere" It's a cliché, but when you think about it, if I'd seen where she was appearing from I'd never have hit her, right? Her left eye was full of blood. While we waited for the ambulance, she said "I'm sorry. I was running to beat the light."


It's vindication of a sort, I guess.

And you know something?

It doesn't make me feel the slightest bit better.


Yesterday I started cleaning out the car in preparation for its insurance examination and eventual last trip. When I came outside and approached the car, my eye fell on the star in the windshield, and on the single brown hair caught between the slivers of glass.

I went back inside.

This is the meaning of horror, ladies and gentlemen. Horror corrupts, taints what it touches. Horror turns the familiar happy landmarks of your life into land mines. Horror poisons everything you eat, blackens the shining moments . . .

I'm sure this will fade. Hell, I know it will. But right now it's way too close. This is a zero-sum game. Nobody wins.

I guess I'm done for now. I've narrowed into a spiral and I have nothing more to say at the moment.

Thanks for listening.