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Tuesday, April 12, 2005

mortality

It was dark. The manouever was fairly simple: I’d parked behind my dad’s car, had to go downstairs, reverse it so the parents could leave, and then park it back in. Got in, started the car, didn’t bother turning the lights on (the lane we live in is rarely used). Backed up, waited for my parents to get into their car. Watch three kids on their bikes zoom past me. Pretty fast, stupid little buggers. Whizz past my side view mirrors. I watch my rear view mirror and three adolescent bottoms wiggle furiously with the exertion of pedalling. Did I ever go that fast? The red back lights of my dad’s SUV flash on. I remember the days on my pink bike, pedalling at night, letting go of the handlebars. The white reverse lights glow as my dad hits the car into reverse. Feeling the wind whoosh past my ears, feeling like I was on top of the world. The SUV is finally reversing. We even used to play tag on our bikes. The kids have turned around, and are now heading back up the street. I take a breath, the SUV rolls back.

The timing is almost flawless. My dad is still reversing, the bikes, coming fast with no reflectors at a beautiful tangent. The point of intersection, my driveway, seven feet left of my car hood. dy/dx = 0.

And stupidly, I just watch it all happen. I forget to exhale.

My dad always had fast reflexes. He breaks right after the first kid zips by, Second and Third still pedalling past. Third has been trying to tag First, and is a little to the right, exactly in the path of the back wheel. Somewhere in the fifth dimension guardian angels of the seven people present all rush forward. I can see the ineveitable crunch, and close my eyes. I hear the thunk, the crunch, the scream. Then I realize that was just my imagination.

I open my eyes, and let go of the breath I didn’t know I was holding.

First, Second and Third are already at the end of the street, father is starting to reverse again and mother is still clutching her heart and has probably just finished saying “hai Allah”.

I can’t believe I was too stupid to honk. Why didn’t I think of it?

3 comments:

G said...

phew. for a moment i thought, please, let there not be yet another tragedy. though if i recall, even as a fairly sedate child i could've died any number of a million times doing some of the things we used to do. i think ab safaid baal aur pan ka zamana agaya hai. hai Allah, indeed.

Phitaymaun said...

next time, you will.

demoncrat said...

haha.. amazing how so much can happen in a moment - so much that you wonder where were you - just sitting behind the wheels mute. It was still a moment though, dont be too hard on ur self, we all go thru it - just a little moment. Imagine how it would feel like if we could see everything in every moment, every day, without the neccessity of an imminent suddent catastrophic scenario to inject us with the adrenaline and alertness necessary! imagine.