Wreck

Mother dearest

I showed up at my brother Lucas’ place as a surprise like I often did on the Easter weekend. Mum was out the front at her glass table drinking wine and announced ‘well look what the cat dragged in’ as I entered the yard like she always did. Lucas walked out and shook my hand with his Maltese terrier Galahad doing figure-eights between our legs and yapping ceaselessly like he always did. He asked how the warehouse was going and offered me one of his piss-weak light beers and sat at the table with Mum. He eventually told the dog to get on his mat and said something about the weather. His wife Susan arrived home at some point and hit me with some fake smiles and a very, VERY soft hug. She went inside and got changed and after a few minutes she politely poked her head out of the door and asked ‘Lucas, can I speak to you for a minute?’ to which Lucas glanced at us with an eye roll and walked inside. Susan then gave him the third degree about me being at the house unannounced when she has friends and family coming over again, and then came back outside with her feigned happiness and asked how the warehouse is going, not that she gives a f**k. Then, wait, I'm actually stuck in my car on the side of the road.

I realized I was drooling on the car seat when I noticed I was hallucinating again in the late afternoon. I wonder if Lucas would suspect that something was wrong, given I didn’t show up at his place this morning to surprise mum for Easter. Outside of the warehouse I don’t really have a life, and the life I do have is at his place for Easter like it always is. I always looked forward to seeing Lucas and ma on special occasions, it reminds me of when Dad was around.

This Easter, unfortunately would be a little different. There would be no smart-ass comments from mum, no yapping dogs, no low-strength beer and no bitchy wives. Just a mangled mess of steel and my rotting, desiccated corpse sitting inside of it with a light glaze of dried sweat and blood and possibly a few bite marks taken out of my side from cannibals with Utes. Why the f**k am I here?

I knew the answer but didn’t want to come to terms with it. Every one of those low-ball glasses of gin and post-mix tonic water was just a step to make last night’s plans easier. I knew if I crashed here and died, it would be a horrible accident, and I actually got drunk enough to do it. My mother would cry, and Lucas would hold her at the funeral and nobody would know I was suffering and think it was a freakish stroke of bad fortune. The most freakish stroke of bad fortune, however, was the fact that I survived the crash.

My life was a f*****g joke; Monday to Saturday at the warehouse clicking together flash drives and putting them into boxes, 6 cups of coffee and the occasional rare glance at Piper’s stocking-wrapped legs. She was the lady from accounting, slightly older than me but damn was she the only aesthetically pleasing thing about that place. I’d spend my day off watching YouTube videos or jerking off or skulking around my apartment pretending to be accomplishing something other than carpal tunnel. Earlier this week, on Tuesday, Piper filed a s****l harassment complaint towards me, and I was let go. Apparently, I was staring at her and it made her uncomfortable. I remember walking out of the building feeling like I was dragging an anvil, or that there was a car tied to the skin on the back of my neck and it was only just moving along. The warehouse, no, Piper was all I had. The only aesthetically pleasing thing about my whole life.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about jumping off my building from the highest point of the fire escape or swallowing the remaining liquid in that bottle of Drain-oTM that had been sitting on my counter top since January 2014.

I didn’t plan to crash my car and die, so it was technically an accident, I just decided to jerk the steering wheel a little to the left quickly enough to make me feel something. It was a rush, and it made me tingle all over the first time, so I did it again but a little harder. The front wheels slammed off the road and onto the dirt so quickly and my first reflex wasn’t to correct the turn but to grab on to the passenger seat with my left arm for stability. As all four of the cars wheels slid onto the dirt and into the scrub I let go of the wheel to shield my face from the impact of an oncoming tree that compacted my car like a coke can with a thunderous bark of twisted steel and a seismic jolt. My head hit the dash and my teeth blasted into the back of my throat in several fragments, my left arm was shredded by high-speed folding metal that pinned it against the seat and a fleet of tiny squares of broken glass made a series of s***h marks on my face as I saw a burst of black and white static and fell unconscious.

I wish I just died. I wish my neck snapped or my chest was crushed, and I just f*****g died. As I started to tear up from all the reminiscing a graceful voice whispered into my frontal lobe. ‘Maybe you’re alive for a reason.’ My mother was in the back of the car holding a glass of wine, she must’ve been there this whole time, I wish she’d have mentioned that a bit earlier, but I’m glad the guy with the shears didn’t notice she was there. I looked back at her as best I could and smiled through lacerated lips. I cleared the gunk out of my throat ‘Of course you’d say that, you’re my mum.’ I coughed as she just shook her head and sipped her wine. ‘You think Lucas would still be trapped in here?’ she asked raising her eyebrows and c*****g her head slightly like she did when she said something she deemed to be witty. I turned back to face the steering wheel scowling. Really? She was going to bring up my brother right now when I’m the one trapped in the f*****g car wreck.

I ignored mum for a few seconds then turned back around and swallowed my pride ‘Well how do I get out? If you’re so smart.’ She leaned forward, and I could smell the pungent scent of red wine on her breath; ‘Look back here.’ She stated as if it were obvious before ceasing to exist and leaving me alone in my car once again. Go figure.