2.
PASSION
AND DEATH - SATURNALIA
Night
drive on sleety
dark
roads, March melancholy
fills
my soul, thoughts
of
the morning’s death
of
our beloved Pyr,
Floydrmoose.
A flash
of
light, straight ahead
not
to the side,
Son
of a B –! jolt wrenching
impacted
plastic, twisted
metal
screaming, body
jarring,
slamming into
the
seat; airbag deploying
glasses
into the backseat,
and
the worlds turn and
whirl
in the darkness
of
night. Unseen forces
catapult
the car down
the
embankment,
across
rough surfaces,
frozen
cornrows thumping
under
tires, hands
clenched
to the
steering
wheel,
then
roll to a
stop.
Wiggle fingers,
wiggle
toes, neck check,
raise
right arm, then left,
move
right leg, then …
pain
seers up
and
down my left leg
jammed,
trapped
under
the impact of
collapsed
dashboard.
Blind
passenger seat
reach
yields the
cell
phone, finger stabs
nine-one-one,
remote
voice
of the dispatcher,
report
the accident,
injuries,
mayhem, pain,
trapped
in the car,
send
ambulance and
squad.
Call home,
repeat
the report, then
wait,
in the dark,
thirty
minutes of drivers-by
inquiries,
squad car lights
blink
patterns of red, then
blue
across the frozen
surface
of the field,
the
ambulance pulling
behind
the blinking lights,
more
muffled voices
report
to unknown voices,
acetylene
torch sparks,
the
welder’s sparkler,
cuts
the center post
from
the crumpled
driver’s
door, as
the
post is ripped out,
I
look up to the road,
you
pass by slowly
like
a ghost on the
road,
bound to Eden
Prairie,
and Luke,
completing
the mission
I
failed to execute.
A
whispered, ”Lay back.
We’re
going to pull you out.”
The
back of my seat drops
a
flat board placed under
my
back, another whisper,
“This
is going to hurt
like
hell!” Falling gently
backwards
unbelievable
intense
pressure, the pain
roars
in my head, a
sudden,
“one, two, three
pull!!”
My breath catches,
eyes
wide open, amazingly
no
curses escape my lips.
I
look down on the field,
the
frozen bits and pieces
of
ploughed under corn,
sticking
up like lifeless
fingers,
waving, “Adieu!”
as
I’m carried across
the
frozen field, up
the
embankment, and
inserted
into the ambulance.
Unforeseen
adventures,
with
unknowable outcomes,
no
strangers to me by now.
A
voice calls into the
hospital,
a muffled reply
acknowledges,
it looks
to
be a very long night.
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