Promises

My wife tried to make me promise not to die, I said I couldn’t give her that promise. If I could save somebody with my own life, then that is what I’d do. Then, later, I saw her for a fleeting second, knew immediately the next horrific moments, saw them in my minds eye. She looked the wrong way, left, instead of right, and even though in her wayward glance she would have seen the proper crossing, she didn’t think to use it. Before she hit my car, before the wing mirror spun through the air, blood surely on it, I had moved the wheel, managed, however small, to be over the centre of the road, not thinking what may have been coming at me. I heard the thud, can still here the thud, like a conjuror’s trick I can recall it at will, still say ‘Oh, my God’, in that paralysed way, pull over to the side, stop before that crossing she should have used. I got out so quickly, nothing close behind me, could hear her moaning, not screaming, but moaning, still alive, I thought, for the moment, then the next car along, a man who knew what to do, crouched over her, spoke to her softly. The first door I came to, an off-shift policewoman, she helped summoned the help for everyone, while I sat shaking. After an hour, after the ambulance, the policemen, the accident crew, I walked back to the car, saw the dent in the metal, knew it’d been made by her, I was driven home. She survived, thank anyone, plastic surgery a scar she will carry, but she was all right, and that’s what mattered. Her guardian rang me, a few days later, thanked me for swerving, she would have died if I hadn’t, I said it was all right. I hadn’t thought of myself.This was an incident that happened years and years ago. It's not some sort of aren't I the brave one, it's almost an homage to the fact that we're not in control of everything we do, are reactions sometimes determine who we are. Written January 4th, 2002 © on Jan 03 2002 11:40 PM PST, Simon Birks   0 • 10