LAST CALL Listen, just shut up and listen. Alright? It's of the utmost importance you’re told what happened, we don't have much time, so just please let me do my job. These are the last moments of your life. Not mine. Remember that. Here you are, driving, at Six o' five A.M. on a Sunday. It’s January. There is snow on the road. You turn on the radio. The music makes you think of something your grandparents might have danced to, though you aren’t sure if they had. This is what you are listening to when a car turns off the side street, blinders on and doing exactly that. You say and I quote, “asshole" before flashing your own lights. One. Two. Three times. In response, the other vehicle’s lights flash. Vision, lost, vision, lost, vision, lost. They pass, leaving you to blink the blindness from your eyes. You hear something like nails on a chalkboard or fork tines on a china plate, your seat pushes you up towards the sky and then your world starts to rotate. A mechanically guttural noise growls then screams. This noise, you think it's a spaceship. You think that feeling of weightlessness is because you are being abducted by aliens. I’m not making this up. Something explodes, either before or after something punches you in the chest and face. You black out. The first time you see her, the beauty she holds in her awkwardness; the way her ears and nose are too big for her head, which in-turn is too big for her body. In that package is something that instantly hooks and reels you in. The first time your lips envelop hers as your hands embrace her waist and her arms constrict your neck and an unchained beast gallops in your chest. The first time her muscles go bowstring tight as she climaxes and the way she tells you she never knew sex was supposed to feel so great. Your mind folds in on these recollections of your wife. These are your memories. Not mine. Keep that in mind. You have no idea where you are or how long you've been there. Between the crumpled hood and the sagging airbag you can only see the onyx ground and alabaster sky. There is ringing in your ears like wedding bells. The taste of metal thrives in your mouth. You lift your arm from the ceiling and probe with two fingers that find it’s just the last quarter of an inch or so of your tongue that’s gone. Maybe that’s the lump that you feel in the back of your throat. When you relax your arm it falls above you. This must be what astronauts feel like. The seat belt cuts into your shoulder and hips, keeping you suspended above the upholstered roof. For a moment you just breathe as shallow as you can. It feels like your dad is sitting on your chest, poking you in the ribs, past the ribs, jamming his finger directly into your lung. You cough, the finger goes deeper, his weight sinks lower, and blood sprays the limp airbag. Still, the lump in your throat remains. As each breath comes and goes the cadence in your ears intensifies until the only sound you can hear is that telltale sound of panic. To calm yourself you try to turn your head, to get your bearings straight. Your neck doesn’t want to move, when you make it move something cracks, adding rim-shots to the percussive beat of your heart. Your scream doesn’t carry. Without turning your head again, you drag your arm from the ceiling, fighting to keep it aloft, while you blindly reach for the seat belt release. Holding your breath as you do this, before long, stars start dancing in from the corners of your eyes. It isn’t until you feel the letters etched in plastic that you release the air you've held captive. The seat belt cuts as deep as your next breath and your father is grinding a whole fist worth of knuckles into your lungs and nothing gets better the moment you jam your fingers down and the belt goes free. Your shoulder hits first, closing the half-foot of space between you and the roof. The headstand you're doing is like when you were a kid, unable to support any weight, so you just put your back against the wall, tucked your chin to your chest and stared at your feet, effectively cutting off your airway until you had to fall sideways to catch your breath. This time when you fall sideways you hear a noise, like popcorn in the microwave downstairs, just one single kernel at first, then a few others. You’re motionless but the popping slowly builds and your eyes see something outside the passenger-window and you say and I quote “who da fuh buts a ock in a ield” and the popping crescendos and the roof falls out from under you. These are the last of your thoughts. Not mine. Never forget that. The ice is layered like a cutaway you once saw in a program about Antarctica, zebra striped. Below that, the water is what you see when your eyes are closed. You move slowly, sitting up, gripping your side. Now fear is blocking the pain, your father is saying, “mind over matter, if you don’t mind, it don’t matter.” Something catches your eye, sitting on the ledge that used to be the underside of your dashboard. You’re counting the heartbeat in your ears as you reach for it, it takes seventy-seven to grab it and another forty-five to pull it back, your cell phone. You let go of your side, dialing the only number you can think of. From a faraway and ethereal sounding place the electric patter of an unanswered call speaks in your ear. The longer the tone drones on the lower your heart sinks. You think, maybe you should have called 911 instead. When the ringing stops and the mechanical voice of the answering line picks up, you think, maybe it's better this way. You know it's better this way. “Mornin ear, I ust anted ew ear ore oice,” as the car sinks lower, the windshield starts to press against the ice and a noise like pebbles cast against a bedroom window jolts you. The glass is giving out, the water is wanting in, “an ew ell ew at I iss ew an I lub ew.” "I..." Your tongue locks as rivulets of water begin streaming through the cracks in the glass. It doesn't take long for the fabric of the roof below you to become sodden and for the damp cold to leech its way into your jeans before your skin. You shiver, speaking quickly. "Ew muss be sweeping I'm sowey ah we..." There is a beep, the same voice that greeted you now tells you your time is up, it asks if you would like to listen to the message you left, or delete it and leave another. You opt for neither. Holding the phone to your ear until it beeps and flashes with her picture you swallow blood and that bit of tongue or fear that’s been stuck in your throat, brushing away the tear that’s falling from your eye before letting the phone drop to the water logged roof. Refusing to go out on terms that are not your own you swivel your feet around, taking aim at the front window. Slowly you tuck in your legs, taking ten breaths as you do so, counting each one out in your mind and holding it longer than the one before. One Two, Three. Four. This is your last chance at survival. Five… This is what your life has amounted to. Six. This is your car, dark and wet, not unlike your mother's womb. Seven. This is your crying face, swollen and soaked. These are your ribs, rattling below your skin. Eight. This is the fetal position you are in, looking so similar to your infantile self. Nine. This is everything that you have hoped to avoid, a large amount of suffering for the small release of death. Ten. When you launch your legs forward they connect with and shatter the glass and the water becomes three million needles that tattoo invisible words over your skin as you’re pushed against the seat behind you. You move every bit of your shambled self towards the hole that you created but before you can even clear the window frame dad pokes at your lung and your breath turns into bubbles that drift upwards into nothingness. You knock what little glass remains out of the frame as you grab it and pull yourself free, looking for a way out from under the ice. There are no exits to be found. Your car is blocking the only hole. You press yourself to the cold underbelly of the lake’s surface and hit it with everything you have and when everything you have proves to be insufficient your tears become one with the water. All the hours you spent at work, doing a job you hate, to buy things that you don’t love. It eats at you as the stars come back to your eyes. Everything you’ve needed to have, you will give it all up, for just a little air, just a little light, and the chance to see her again. Your father always told you, “Get a job where you can sleep at night, because working them is going to kill you.” In a roundabout way it happened to him. In a roundabout way it happened to you. History is forever prone to repetition. The end. This was your life flashing before your eyes. Not mine. Any questions? I’m sorry, but we are out of time.
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