CRASH
the by jack wypiszynski
The rain pounds against Brantley’s Jeep and begins to collect in a circular puddle around the stopped machine as the broken headlights raggedly illuminate the descending liquid. It’s coming down so fast that no one could see the lifted SUV unless it was right in front of them. Brantley stares forward through the spiderweb-cracked windshield, his typically kempt hair loosely falling straight down off his chiseled face. He begins to stir, and a bombarding headache hits him like a bulldozer through a wall. The world ahead of him seems upside down, though. Of course, it’s so dark, that it’s impossible to tell. He slowly begins to lift his head, and he can feel his long legs reach through the tattered canvas top, right onto the frigid wet earth below.
tries to exit his ruined Wrangler, his hands scraping across the side of his car, trying to f i n d anything to grab onto. It would have been hard enough for him if he was sober, but with the rain and crash, he found it incredibly d i f f i c u l t. . As his hands run across the wood grain of the custom made side panel, he eventually f i n d s the insert. The handle.
The door slowly creaks open as he crawls out, cutting his hands on the glass shards littering the rocks his Jeep had come to rest upon, the river roaring in the back. The rain sears his cuts like salt in his eyes. He drunkenly climbs up the rocks, trying to get away from the river and to f i n d out what the hell just happened. He can’t get that far, as the texture of the He had come around the rocks turns from weathered bend too fast. He slowly to soft. Suddenly, he sees 42//Growth
the lifeless baby blue eyes of a little boy. Brantley jumps back in shock, and it all hits him. The party, the drinking, him swearing to Sam that he was ok to drive, the bass bumping in his car, the speeding, the curve he hit too fast. The car sliding, the little boy at the side of the road, his passengers screaming, and the sickening thump as his car rolls over and hits the innocent child. The passengers. Brantley then remembers them, as he gazes across the dark riverside. He sees a few dark shapes in the river. As he painfully walks over to it, he realizes exactly what he’s done, as he sees Sam and his friends f l o a t i n g in the water. He walks back, lifts the body of the little boy, and they all sink twenty feet into the river.
