I drove weaving between the white and yellow lines that were leading me home. We joked and laughed as we drunkenly sang along with the radio, the young girl in the back seat sitting next to my friend had been eying me all night long and now she traveled home with me.
I looked over at my friend riding shotgun as he stuck his head out the window, his body rejecting half of the alcohol he had drank earlier. In the rear view mirror I saw her watching me with glossy amber eyes screaming out in lust. I look back at her, nothing else mattered including the road, and the car began to drift into oncoming traffic. By the time I looked back to the road it was too late, all I could see were the blinding headlights. The blaring horn echoed in my head as the sound of crushing metal filled the air. I watched as my friends yelled out in terror but I was deaf to their cries, it all happened so quickly, yet so slow as if it were a bad dream.
The car windows shattered into a thousand pieces of shrapnel, the glass floating through the air. My legs were crushed by the dashboard as the force of the collision pushed the car inward on me and then it happened, we started to roll over and over, the contents of the car that were not belted down went flying everywhere, an aerial ballet of glass, dirt and debris danced about as though it were weightless. I could feel the metal ripping into the flesh of my upper thigh as bones snapped and cracked, the steering wheel pressed hard to my chest pinning me to the seat and my head was repeatedly slammed off the door frame, then everything went dark.
I woke in the passenger seat still belted in and in great pain. Looking to my left I saw the torn and bloody body of what appeared to be a man. He was eviscerated and his lower half nearly cut off from the upper half by the dashboard which had been smashed into his gut. I was the driver but now the passenger of the same car. The bloody body was mine.
My wounds were light but my body ached and my head felt unconnected from my shoulders.
My hands weak and shaking, I could hardly grasp the seat belt to free myself. Smoke was rising from the front of the car as the seat belt finally came lose, I fell a short distance to the roof of the car. Looking to the back seat I could see my other friend nearly beheaded and the girl I was going to take home was black and blue in the face and her arms hung lifelessly. Grabbing the door handle and pushing with what little strength I could muster the broken door fell from the frame and I pulled myself from the wreckage. I tried to free my friends but none of them showed any signs of life, so I turned to the other car and crossed the road which was covered in broken glass and the slick black life blood of the car.
The other vehicle was in the ditch with the rear half still in the road. The driver was a young man, maybe 30 years old badly bruised and unconscious but still breathing. I tried to open the driver’s door but it would not budge, my fingers burned as I leaned in the driver’s window and tried to undo his seat belt, which was also jammed. Grabbing the belt and wrapping it around my arm I was able to break it free and pull the unconscious victim from his car and move him a short distance laying him on the cool wet grass. Suddenly I heard a frantic sobbing cry come from my car, and to my horror it was now ablaze. The girl I assumed was dead, was not, and now she was trapped in a fiery cage. I ran to her as quickly as my unstable legs would let me but by the time I reached the car the flames were climbing out of control and her screams became uncontrollable sobs as she was being burned alive. I tried to fan the flames away with my jacket so I could get to her but the flames were too intense I could only watch in horror.
Feeling exhausted and helpless I was ready to give up, when out of nowhere the sound of a crying infant rang out in the night air, so loud it drowned out all other noise.
“Oh God!” I yelled out in despair.
The other car was now filling with smoke the driver was still out cold in the grass. None of the doors would open and my hands and feet weren't much good for anything at this point. I climbed in through the window I had pulled the father out of earlier, the seats were dislodged and smashed together making the reach for the child difficult, so I squeezed through to the back seat and found the very unhappy but healthy baby in the car seat. Fumbling I unlatched the harness, as flames burst from under the car and engulfed it from all sides, trapping me and the infant inside. The heat was so intense it clouded my mind and kept me from thinking clearly, I panicked for a moment but the cries of the infant broke through the panic and quickly restored my sanity.
I gently wrapped the baby in my leather jacket so that no part of it was exposed, and cradling it against my chest, I then laid back and began to kick at the window. Sweat rolled down my face and smoke filled my lungs as the fire made its way inside the car torching the front seat and slowly making its way toward the baby and I. The fear of death meant nothing to me but fear for the child’s life drove me to keep trying, even though my skin felt like it was melting from the heat. With one last thrust of my heel the window exploded outward and the flames now surrounded me and the child whose muffled cries broke my heart.
I only had one chance at saving the child's life and that was to toss it from the car. Leaning toward the window with my eyes closed, I shoved the infant through the flames and to my surprise it hit another set of hands, which prompted me to open my eyes and through smoke and fire I could see another set of hands reaching into the fire. I quickly handed the child over and through my burning eyes and one last smoke filled breath I was free to smile at death.
Throwing away the smoldering leather jacket and holding the child in my bleeding and trembling arms I gave him a gentle squeeze, as my own heart soared. I now stood holding the miracle baby, my son, rescued from a fiery prison, delivered into my arms by an unknown hero. I now stood, not as a crushed drunk driver, or the passenger hero, but the loving father reunited with his precious child, and I wept as the horror and pain I felt and caused gave way to pure elation.
I had made amends for the misery and death I had caused by suffering each cut and burn, living through the eyes of those I had hurt, and in the end making right, my wrong!
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