Tag Archives: accident

The Ride

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A Ficly about two boys who have an experience with their first car.

It was probably a bad idea to begin with.

My father gave us the old family station wagon when we turned seventeen that november, so we figured that because the car was falling apart anyway, we might take it for a bit of a spin. We put a few bags of cement mix in the trunk and the back seat to keep it nice and low to the ground. There was a bump at the end of the road and I wondered if we could make it over without loosing the front fender.

Devan wanted to make sure that we didn’t get hurt trying it, so we backed the car up about a hundred or so feet and stuck it in gear. We both got out.

There was my brother with one of the bags of cement, getting ready to drop it on the accelerator.

There was a dumb look on our faces that meant we were trying to figure out if this was a good idea or not.

Had there been a movie theater in town, or something, anything really, we might have been less inclined to nod at each other and throw the bag on the pedal.

I guess neither of us expected the lug nuts on the left front wheel to rattle off and send the tire flying into the neighbors living room. Of course, I’m sure they were more concerned about the rest of the car which found its way into pool, although I’m sure they didn’t find it until the following summer.

ALTERNATE version on Ficly: http://ficly.com/stories/17862

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The First Shovelful

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A ficly that, yes, is obviously inspired by the funeral I attended today, but I think it’s still a decent piece of writing. A friend of mine started to cry when the first shovelful of dirt hit our French Teacher’s casket. So I wrote this…

By now the doors would be locked, but I had stolen the key. Felt like I was sorting through my ring for hours before I found the right one. Everything was just a little blurry. I’m not sure if that’s a sign that my vision going, or just the fact that my eyes are welling up. It’s probably the booze.

I flick on the master light switch and the whole building lights up. Christmas in July. The score board on the far side of the rink flashes on and resets itself. Still, it’s shockingly quiet. The only whisper comes from the fans up in the rafters, shaking and spinning the same way they always do, irregularly. This place is getting old.

I never thought it would be so easy to find tragedy on the ice. The police certainly cleaned up the mess ruthlessly. Not even a trace.

When my sons lowered their brother’s casket into the ground and grabbed the shovels, I realized I hadn’t been expecting the dirt to be so loud when it hit the wood. They all paused, holding heavy shovels of soil, letting the sound sink in.

Originally on Ficly: http://ficly.com/stories/16331

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Christmas with Socrates

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Expanded version of a Ficly about a bus ride during the holiday season.

I sat back in my chair listening to the fat guy with the shirt advertising “Socrates Plumbing” next to me bark into his phone. The bus rolled down an exit ramp that merged into an empty Route 50 west. East-bound traffic was backed up for miles as people tried to get to their ham dinners in a manner that I just couldn’t help but think looked a lot like fleeing. Fleeing what? I don’t know. Boredom.

It occurred to me that the bus had emptied out significantly since we got underway, but Socrates next to me was, well… still next to me. I sat forward a bit and looked around. There was no one there except for a very middle aged Chinese woman in the first row.

The bus driver had told the fatso a few times to stop using his phone. Finally he started to yell, and I remember the woman up front looking at me nervously. There was a moment of confusion as the man next to me hoisted himself up using the back of the seat in front of him and started heading aggressively towards the front of the bus.

After the accident, when I stepped off the bus, head still spinning, I looked at the damage. An SUV had side-swiped the bus leaving a long streak of broken cargo doors and chipped paint down the side. My suitcase had burst open all over the pavement. Onlookers from the congested side of the highway stared at the bus, my belongings, and me. I felt naked.

I looked down the road at the silhouette of the destroyed car that had been speeding along the wrong side of the road and wondered if it was all just another symptom of the holiday season.

Originally on Ficly: http://ficly.com/stories/16137

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My Last Intersection

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Not entirely satisfied with this one. Just seems a little empty, but I wanted to make sure I wrote something in addition to some pages in my book, and I did. The Muse is a bit dry right now.

I let the engine roar a little louder, and the wheels turn a little faster than I should have, but the road was empty. I wasn’t doing much over ninety. The green dot in the distance marked the intersection before the one that I could turn left at and be home. Three in the morning, I think.

My headlights knocked against the trees and grass, beating away the shadows like a desperate little army. The light was still green. I knew that if I gunned it just a bit faster I might pull through as it was just about to turn from yellow to red.

I was almost home anyway. I kept it at ninety five. I was far enough to stop when I saw it turn yellow. If I had hit the brakes, I would have stopped well before, but I figured the rush of blowing the light would probably be the perfect end to the drive.

So, to answer your question: Yes, I feel guilty. Very guilty. Drunk on guilt, maybe. I’m still in too much of a daze to grasp how real this is. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be pulling through the light at just that time.

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All the Mist

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Please enjoy this next in my line of Ficly.com Shorts!

“Crazy,” she told the misty air, as she and I looked over the wreckage. The smoking pile of refuse at my feet used to be my twenty-five thousand dollars of torque and stereo and rubber. I guess this kind of thing happens.

She glanced up at me, trying to gauge my reaction. I realized that I had stopped looking at the metal and melted plastic and was staring through to the pavement below. She said worse things could happen. I nodded, gently biting the inside of my cheek, and then tonguing the small swollen area.

I kept waiting for someone to walk out of the mist with a camera crew and tell me I was on t.v.

They’d towed the other car away. Some cop told me that the driver must have had a heart attack and died before smashing into my vehicle. I couldn’t be angry. I had no one to blame as a fat man in a green jumpsuit hooked up what used to be the back end of my car to a winch and hauled it, screaming, across the pavement and onto the back of his truck. They’d never get rid of all this shattered glass.

Originally on Ficly.com: http://ficly.com/stories/15716

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