A Wreck of a Day

If there was anything she hated worse than cold, wet…sleeting skies, she had a hard time thinking of it. The ice built up on her car, freezing the wipers to the windshield, and try as she might, she couldn’t scrape through it . So, she just sat in the car with the defroster on full and waited. Her breath fogged the inside for a time, and it felt as if she were inside an ice cube, looking out.

Eventually the window cleared and the wipers could work. She backed out of her drive and made her way slowly along the slick road. Apparently the road crews were busy elsewhere, or were caught napping by the icing. Already, just a couple miles from her house, and she had seen two cars off the road, the drivers each on their cell phones gesturing wildly inside their cars. Cell phones were a miracle…at times, she smirked.

She saw the intersection ahead was total ice, so she slowly braked, hearing the anti-lock brakes chattering as they tried their best to bring her to a safe stop. Breathing a huge sigh of relief, she looked around all directions trying to see through the now full-on snowstorm moving like a wall towards her from the front. She could not see, so did not move.

Bam! Slammed backwards into her headrest, she was pushed forward into the intersection and watched as another car tried to stop but slid full on into her car, at the rear wheel, spinning her around and around as she slid on through the intersection to collide with a parked car on the street ahead of her.

She shook her head, trying to clear the shock, and looked back to the intersection.

More cars had collided and it now resembled a demolition derby along all the streets she could see. The car she had hit was empty, thankfully, so she got out in the storm, trying to make her way back to see if any others were injured. Cell phones in every hand, all the drivers appeared to be only angry, no great injuries apparent. She walked on across to the car that had hit her in the first place, causing this debacle. No movement inside, so she walked up to see inside, though the snow had already covered the windows. She rubbed a circle into the driver’s window, and looked inside. An elderly woman sat hunched forward, her head against the steering wheel. Blood covered her face, and Shannon immediately pulled out her phone to call 911 as she tried to open the door.

It took many rings for the 911 to answer, and the door was locked to the car, so Shannon went around to the other doors, trying to get in. All were locked, and she could see no movement from inside. A man struggled to her side, seeing her trying to get inside the car. He saw the woman inside and called to her, trying to rouse her, but there was no response. Eventually 911 answered and Shannon quickly told them of the emergency. They were two minutes out, they said, as others had called about the accident already.

The stranger went across the street to a dumpster and pulled out a length of wood, and ran and slid back over to the car….he took the board and swung it with great force into the window behind the driver, shattering it inwards. He reached through and grabbed the old fashioned lock pull on the driver’s door and wretched open the door. He felt for a pulse and saw that the woman was not breathing, nor could he get a pulse. Shannon stood at his side as he talked calmly to the woman, telling her help was on the way. Tears were in his eyes, and snow covered his head, as he squatted next to the woman, holding her hand. Shannon felt shock sadness wash over her body, and she rushed back to her car and got a large umbrella, and returning as quickly as she could across the ice and snow, she opened it to cover the man and woman in the car. The snow fell on her own head and soon covered her in a frozen coat of white.

The man thanked her and continued to talk gently and reassuringly to the woman, who had still not moved. Shannon was afraid, she had never been with anyone who was dead before, and she feared for the woman now. She was awed by the man’s tenderness and strength, to squat there for so long.

The sound of sirens were coming from all directions, it seemed, but the EMT’s were traveling at a slow walk’s pace, due to the ice. Four arrived at nearly the same time, and several of the other drivers of wrecked cars told the first to arrive of the need to get to the car Shannon was at. Two loaded EMT men came to her side and asked the man to step aside. He struggled up and backed away, telling the woman help was here. As he stepped back Shannon continued to cover him with her umbrella, feeling he must be frozen in the light jacket he had on. She could see that his eyes had crusted with frozen tears, and without thinking she reached up and tried to brush some of the ice away. He startled and looked at her, again telling her thanks for helping so much.

Shannon asked him if he was alright, and he absently told her he was fine. He did not move away from the scene, so Shannon stood beneath the large umbrella with him, holding it for them both, as they watched the men try to remove the woman and tend to her. They immediately had seen that she had no pulse, it seemed, for they placed her flat on a board and rushed her to the ambulance, where they could try to resuscitate her. Shannon walked with the man under the umbrella to the vehicle, and watched as they tried to shock her back, and force breath into her mouth. She had seen such things on TV, but watching it for real, feeling the agony of the wait, the hope for a pulse…..a breath, was terrible.

But, despite the incredible work of the men, it was clear there would be no miracle today. No heart beat; no breath. Shannon realized she was holding her own breath, hoping so to see the woman move. When they covered the woman with a sheet, she heard the man next to her take a deep ragged breath, and saw that he was crying still. Her own face was also wet, she found, though she had not noticed at all. She switched hands with the umbrella and put her arm around the man and guided him to a shop near them, for shelter. She told him she had to go to her wrecked car and talk with the police. Would he be ok? Was his car also in the pile up?

He looked at her and told her he had just been walking on the sidewalk, and he was fine. He stared into her face and smiled, and said he would wait for her.

The police work and clearing of the intersection were very fast, probably as no one wanted to be in the snow. Her own car was towed away….clearly totaled. The old woman’s car was also towed away, and the Police told her they would send the woman’s insurance numbers to her own company. It was clearly the woman’s fault in the accident. No one else had been injured , it seemed. Shannon was back at the shop where she left the man, within a half hour. She saw him sitting at a booth, cup of coffee in his hands…bowed over…..as if in prayer perhaps. The shop was full of people, many from the wrecks she saw. Not much talking, as all seemed to be quieted by the death and chaos.

Shannon sat across from the man, afraid to disturb him if he was praying.

He looked up at her and smiled and asked her to sit, and poured her a cup of coffee, having had two cups set up. She welcomed the warmth and kept her coat on, as had he.

He reached out his hand and said “Arman”, as introduction. She smiled and took his still cold hand….”Shannon”, she said.

Arman still looked sad and she chose to drink her coffee and wait for him to process whatever he needed to do. She also felt all the emotion of it swimming around inside. Witnessing the woman’s death was her first experience of such a thing, and she realized she had lived a very “apart” life in many ways. Protecting herself. She had lost no one close to her yet. This….loss…of a stranger….seemed quite painful enough. And, the loss of her new car, and the shock of the wreck…was just starting to hit her. She found tears were quietly falling into her cup. She took a few deep breaths, and wiped her eyes. Arman looked at her and seemed to become awake to the truth of what She was dealing with. He touched her hand and asked if there was anything he could do to help her. He was so touched by her care for him through all this. Certainly, he should have been helping her. She told him what he had done was ….amazing, and she felt it a privilege to offer a little help to him. They both smiled a little and sipped their coffee.

Arman asked her if she was going to be late for work, and what she was going to do about her car. Shannon had not even thought of work, and gasped. She called the office and told her friend at the front desk what had happened. Sheila told her she would tell Brian, her boss, that Shannon would not be in because of the accident. He would be fine.

Shannon thought of the new car, now lying in some forlorn lot of wrecks, certainly. Her new car. Not even one payment yet. Would lose her shirt on it, for sure. Insurance would not pay for all of it, she was sure. Probably would lose thousands.

Her strain and anxiety must have shown, for Arman told her he would like to help her figure out what to do about the car. His cousin owned the tow-lot and a shop…perhaps it could be fixed. She doubted it, but was touched by his offer. She agreed to go with him to the tow yard and look at it with his eyes too. Maybe it was not a total loss. She also realized she had to call her own agent, and set up for them to meet them there, together.

Arman called his sister and had her come get them and take them to the car tow lot. Shannon felt disjointed and dull aches were forming in her neck and back. She also found a very sore spot on her shoulder…probably when she was hit from the side, she thought. This was almost more than she knew how to manage. Buying the car was a risk, and she could see her meager savings disappear in the day’s events. She could not afford to get another car.

She turned to look at Arman, sitting in the front seat with his Sister Stacey. He looked a bit sad, and she wished she could say something to help. The woman’s death had hit him hard, she saw. It had also thrust a darkness into her heart, as she watched the old woman lie there in the Ambulance. She had not lost anyone in her life yet, and this felt somehow a rude awakening. Perhaps it was so for Arman as well. What was clear was that this man was a truly sensitive soul. It reached to her and she felt connected to him, though they were strangers.

At the lot, Arman took over and talked with his cousin at length…both moving their hands and lot as they talked. It was fun to watch, and the rising and falling of their voices made her smile. Both came to talk with her then, where she stood quietly talking with Stacey. The Insurance agent had also arrived and stood with them as well. The cousin, Imir, introduced himself and told them all to come back to the place where the car was sitting on the lot. She saw the car long before they got to it, and she felt it almost a living thing, lying broken upon the gravel, sadness in it’s face. The rear section was pushed in a lot, to her eyes, and broken windows and crumpled metal were what filled her vision. The snow had covered it in a light blanket, and she felt perhaps they should just leave it there, in peace.

Imir and the Agent both walked around the car, brushing it off and opening doors, trunk, and crawling in the snow to look beneath the broken hulk. Standing briskly, Imir approached them all and told them it was not going to be a problem. Very straightforward to fix. He actually had a donor car in his wrecking lot just like it, and felt the repairs would be around $5000 dollars to restore it completely. Shannon cringed when she heard the number, and began to imagine talking the bus to work from now on, and still probably having to pay off the car debt.

Imir looked to the Agent and asked him what he had seen. Bill Thoms was typing into his computer as he walked around the car, and told Shannon that the car was “totaled” as far as he was concerned, as repairs at a Body Shop would be over $18,500 dollars. The car was technically a “write off”. He looked oddly into her eyes, and then, after a long pause, told Shannon she would be sent a check for the “repair costs”…it was the best he could do. He would not require the car to be scrapped.

Shannon felt lost, the numbers swimming in her head. She could not understand the vast difference in numbers, but believed that the “totaled” number was still well short of what she owed on the car. The Agent gave his report to her and left. As soon as he was gone Arman whooped and grabbed Shannon and spun her around. This was good news, he laughed. Shannon looked confused and asked him to explain. Imir jumped in and told her that the Agent had done her a big favor. The car was technically not worth repairing at a licensed Body Shop, but he had given her the amount of money to do so. So, as he, Imir ….mechanic extraordinaire…could easily fix her car for around $5000, she would be left with $13,000 extra when it was all done. And, the car would be Perfect… he assured her.

Shannon needed to sit down, the events of the day now catching up to her. She thanked Imir and hugged him, and left her numbers and key with him. He said it would be done in three weeks. He would do the work himself. As she walked away with Arman and Stacey, she felt like some kind of miracle must have happened….but she was not sure how nor what it was. It appeared that the wreck would end up being a windfall…Arman said to her. She suspected that Arman was somehow the one responsible for the “miracle”.

Stacey dropped her off at her house, and Arman gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. She grabbed him and hugged him, looking in his eyes and telling him she knew he was the one who made it all work out so. She thanked him and thanked Stacey as well. When she walked to her door, Arman called out the window and asked her if he could stop by tomorrow to pick her up and take her to work. She looked at his eager face, seeing a boyish delight there, and smiled at him, nodding and telling him the time she would be waiting. Then, just before he closed the window, she asked him if he would like to come over earlier….for breakfast perhaps? He whistled and Stacey laughed with him and he said he would be there at 7:00. Then, they pulled away with his arm waving out the windows.

Shannon went into her small house, full of thoughts of miracles and angels, life and death. An elderly woman, sadly, had left this world this morning, and many people were now without cars for a time….and a young woman named Shannon had thought she lost a car, had actually been given a huge bounty, and met a young handsome man who was sweeping her off her feet. She liked Stacey a great deal also, so she had to add finding a great new friend as well. Life was certainly strange and wonderful…inexplicable and filled with surprises. She thought of the young woman who walked out of her front door that morning, and the one who walked back in this evening. The two were related, but the Now was so much brighter than the earlier version. She felt a wreck had never brought so much goodness before. Perhaps she should get out more.