Crash Christmas. (19/12/04)
		The Mac G4 Powerbook wasn't charging, and I couldn't figure out why. Then I noticed that the light on the surge protector wasn't lit, meaning the laptop must need another power cord. After calling around, a small computer store in Bridgewater had the rare item in stock. I left Wolfville at 3:00 PM, still tired from a sleepless night up with a sick dog while the cats ran around on the hardwood floors like it had rained catnip. I bought the cord and fueled up at Exit 12, grabbing an apple and some cheese to curb the hunger until I got back to the Valley. A girl that worked at Kao's Chinese Buffet in New Minas was coming over after work tonight for the first time, and there was some cleaning to be done; Penny had left a parting gift of odd-coloured barf on the porch mat just as I had left, and the sink was full of dirty dishes. With the laptop operational again, the three Christmas videos that were only partially completed could still make Friday's deadline. The desktop Mac at home would have made this Bridgewater trip unnecessary if not for several key video files stored in the laptop's inaccessible hard drive. The holidays seemed to be more about rushing around making ends meet these days, and hardly resembled the television commercials with families sitting around on the living room rug in fits of laughter. In the malls, shoppers elbowed through crowded isles at break-neck speeds, filling carts with plastic and cotton simply because they felt so-and-so would expect at least a little something from them. Some enjoyed Christmas because they liked to shop; others looked forward to extra cash from their employer; only a few, it seemed, embraced the magic of Santa or celebration of Christ anymore. I told myself I was being a Grinch, and turned up the Kalen Porter song I'd cursed so often before. "Mary did you know..." The back of the big white Chev extended-cab in front suddenly braked, and the gap between us narrowed before my brain understood what my eyes were screaming to it. A rear bearing had been replaced in the Subaru the week before, and the folks at Midas Muffler had not put the brakes back together in their original state. The anti-lock brakes light had been coming on frequently, and the pads often slipped when forced to obey red lights. As I swerved to the left on the divided section of highway, me eyes caught the orange ABS light glowing from the dashboard as the Subaru headed for the grass median, sliding ever more sideways as it neared. The left wheels caught the mud and grass, with 1285 kilograms of metal travelling at 95 kms/hr close behind. There was no time to put on a seatbelt, but that single second was an eternity to the neurons firing off beneath my skull. When the brain can offer no suggestions to avoid impending doom, it tends to distract itself with unrelated thoughts until the threat passes. My brain, who I'd come to respect despite its reluctance to follow regular brain protocol, passed the time by reminding me that the litter box at home was almost full, and that if I didn't return tonight the cats would be shitting on the floor by morning. It gave a brief slideshow of a hospital bed that hovered without legs, a tadpole with a bite taken out of it, the magnified image of a rotting tooth, then quickly flashed through everyone I'd ever come to love, as though it had misjudged the presentation's time limit. Then I started flipping. I held the steering wheel like a winning Super-7 ticket. I think I said, "Oh shit!", but I'm not sure. Then there was glass and mud that was hard to see through the octopus ink that my considerate friend Adrenaline released to blur my vision, shielding visions I'd probably rather not see. And then, everything stopped moving. If it wasn't for the hissing sound of a tire losing air, I might say that the next few moments were relatively peaceful. But my brain, the pessimist that it is, decided the noise could only be gas leaking through a pin-hole in the tank, and that it was going to need my body to complete the last-second Van Damme dive away from the car as it exploded. When both of them were about twenty feet away, action surrendered to consequence. The sunroof had flew about a hundred feet away, the roof had caved in; everything big and small that had lived in the dash and console were now residents of the mucky median. The brain ran a systems check, ignored the slight neck pain and head lump, and faxed a search and rescue order to find the cell phone down to my body. The guy in the truck had called 911, recommending they send everyone there to where he now stood. An old man in a FireFly had decided that stopping abruptly for the small cardboard box in the road would be better than detouring around it, and the guy behind him in the Chev used his new-truck brakes to avoid an insurance claim. I couldn't see the FireFly or the box, and chose the path less taken.
		Visit my other links: Crash Christmas II