A Minute is all it took

A Minute is all it took, one rainy night, to change everything.

Our lives are measured by the construct of time, some say we’re ruled by it.

Sometimes time seems to stretch or be consumed more swiftly. Our perception of time is not necessarily the same as that measured by the carefully calibrated metronome or watch.

Yet a single Minute, 60 seconds, can change the course of a life completely. Endings, beginnings.

Right now I’m having one of those altered perceptions. Everything is moving in slow motion. I’m observing as I’m being thrown forward, the windscreen coming at me too fast. I’m gripping the steering wheel and pushing with all my strength.

How do I have time, right now, to be giving thanks for my years of physical fitness, the weights I’ve lifted, the health of my body? Yet I am. I am delighting in the strength of my arms as I push against that steering wheel and slow the forward momentum of my body.

Success! I might even be smiling. I’m winning!

But what’s this? My head's moving by itself! It’s attached to my body but it’s pulling forward by itself! I’m straining all my neck muscles to stop it, but it’s not making a difference!

I’m not smiling now!

I don’t want to hit my head! I use my head!

STOP!

My field of vision is lower now, my head sloping downwards slightly. My head must have been tilted backwards before. Now I realise the car in front of me is also getting closer.

My foot is jammed on the brake as hard as it can be, so hard that my knee hurts! Still my car is sliding forwards, towards those glowing red lights and pristine white rear end, propelled by the force from the car that hit mine.

Crash!

Sickening sound makes my stomach drop, but in the same instant, now I’m being thrown backwards. Remembering the cushioned headrest, I relax in relief.

Ow!

Metal!

My head hit metal!

It hurts!

I can’t open my eyes. Why can’t I open my eyes? I’m not unconscious! I’m thinking about the pain in my head, all over my head, not like a headache, spread further. And the sharper pain where my head connected with metal. I know it’s metal, without seeing it. It was as though there was no cushioning at all, and I’ve just discovered that my car seat headrest has a metal frame inside it.

Someone is banging on the passenger side window. I think they’ve been banging for a while. They’re saying something, but it’s muffled, like they’re talking through a pillow.

I think they’re asking if I’m alright. I answer “I’m fine,” but it comes out as “mmmppphhh!”

Why isn’t my mouth working?

I try to lift my hand to my head, but that’s not working either.

Maybe try something simple, like a full breath.

Playing woodwind for so many years has given me great breath control. Easy! Go!

I suck on the air and find that difficult.

Maybe I need to exhale? I try, & that works. Long, slow exhale. “It’s a 12 beat bar,” I joke to myself silently, “keep blowing!”

Now an inhale. It works this time. Breathe from the diaphragm, all the way in. And out again. Use those intercostal and abdominal muscles. Empty those lungs! Fill those lungs!

Repeat. Again.

More knocking, on the other window. It’s clearer than last time too.

This time I can open my eyes. I start to turn my head, then remember I’ve been in a car accident and should avoid moving in case there’s spinal damage.

“You have to drive your car off the road,” the young man is yelling at me, “You’re blocking traffic.”

In a panic, I sit up, gripping the steering wheel again.

I mustn’t be a bother!

The engine has stalled. Good thing, too, because my feet aren’t on the pedals.

On autopilot I restart the car and follow the car in front into the service station, and park near the back fence. I stop and rest against the very seat that betrayed me.

As I close my eyes, they fly open again. I have a head injury! I mustn’t fall asleep! All those First Aid courses were not for nothing.

There is a Pharmacy right there. They’re health professionals. They’ll know what to do.

I drag my arm to the door handle and eventually convince my fingers to open it. They seem to have forgotten how. I heave myself slowly, cautiously, out of the car, dragging my handbag behind me, leaning on the door for support, but that hurts too, so then I just stand upright. Manoeuvre my handbag onto my shoulder. Am I swaying? I can’t quite tell, but forward momentum is best.

One foot in front of the other, keep moving forward. At the road I see the car that hit mine. Small. Blue. Front end smashed in, engine dislodged. Must have hit HARD. No one inside. There’s a Police motorcycle. Good.

Inside the Pharmacy the Policeman, still wearing his helmet, is talking to a man.

“Yes!” He sounded agitated, “I called emergency services. We need an Ambulance, not a motorbike copper!”

“Who needs an ambulance?” the policeman seemed to be sneering.

“I might,” I tried to say, but my voice still wasn’t working properly. I needed to sit down. Quite badly.

The Policeman looked at me and pointed, “The drugs are that way. They’ll help you at the back.” The other man made sounds of objection that I couldn’t understand.

Thinking he meant there were paramedics here already treating the person from the other car, I made my way shakily towards the dispensary. No paramedics.

I recognised the Pharmacist, though. I was at Uni with him. We’d played “soccer” in a park, by which I mean he and some others played and the rest of us ran around and sometimes kicked the ball.

A girl moved in front of me as I went to approach. “Can I help you?” she asked in her best gate-keeping voice.

“I need to use the phone to call my grandfather.”

She frowned, but used her customer service voice, the one for getting rid of people. “There’s a public phone across the road.”

I was about to apologise for being a nuisance and leave, but my body screamed that I wouldn’t make it across 4 lanes of traffic to the phone.

“Anthony!” I addressed him directly, raising my voice like a long-lost friend. “I need to use the phone.”

“I don’t know you.”

I tried again.

“I was in the car accident outside & I need to use the phone.”

“There wasn’t a car accident outside.”

I was dumbstruck.

He’d always been one of those insecure petty people who follow the crowd, but this was a new low of pettiness.

“How do you know there wasn’t a car accident. Were you there?”

“No, I heard the crash.”

This made no sense and I had no time to argue.

“I need to use the phone to call my grandfather”

“Your grandfather is dead.”

Three different staff gasped in realisation. They must be listening in.

“You don’t know me but you know my grandfather is dead? So you DO know me, & have kept up with gossip about my life.”

He was blushing now. All the staff that he had presumably been lording it over now knew for certain that he was a liar.

“I need to call my OTHER grandfather, who lives in this suburb, so he can come and take me to hospital. Or you could call an ambulance.”

There was no way a Pharmacist on duty could refuse to call an ambulance when there was evidence outside of a car accident.

He put the landline phone on the counter. “What number? he snapped. I told him & he dialled. He handed me the handset. Not sure if he’d dialed the right number I waited anxiously until my grandfather answered the phone.

I told him where I was, that I’d been in a crash & that I needed to be picked up.

“We’ve got visitors for dinner and we’ve been drinking while we waited for you. You’re late!”

I knew they had visitors, I was on the way to join them!

By now I just wanted to lie down. Why was I fighting to stay upright, to sort this out? I was crashed into and now my head was exploding, not working properly.

“I’ll just get an ambulance, then,” I sighed sadly.

The Adrenalin was wearing off and now I was just so heavy and tired. Lying down on the floor and sleeping forever seemed like the best option.

I handed back the phone and apologised, swaying.

“Sorry to be a nuisance,” I said as my vision narrowed and blurred.

It only took a minute for a car to crash into my life. That crash took away everything I loved: my clever brain, my strong body, my trust in people and faith in my family.