For One More Day

Inspired from Mitch Albom's for one more day.

written by Andrew Harris.

It was night, rain spilled down from invisible clouds. The wipers were thumping as I drove down the interstate. I was fighting to stay awake. A sign for Pepperville Beach appeared on my right Ð'- Exit 1 mile. I must have tranced out because after a while I saw a sign for another town and realized that I had missed my turnoff altogether. I banged on the dashboard, then I spun around, right there in the middle highway, and drove back in the wrong direction. There was no traffic but I wouldn't of cared anyhow. I was getting to that exit. I slammed on the accerlerator. Quickly enough, a ramp came into view- the on ramp not the exit ramp- and I screeched toward it. It was one of those long twisting things, and I held the wheel I a locked turn, going fast around and down.

Suddenly , two huge lights blinded me, like two giant suns. Then a truck horn blasted, then a jolting smash, then my car flew over an embankment and landed hard, thumping downhill. There was glass everywhere and objects were flying around, I grabbed wildly at the steering wheel and the car jerked backward, flipping me onto my stomach. I somehow found the door handle and yanked it hard, and I remember flashes of black sky and green weeds and a sound like thunder and something high and solid crashing down.

When I opened my eyes, I was lying in wet grass. My car was half buried under a now destroyed billboard for a local Chevrolet dealership. In one of those freak moments of physics, I must have been thrown from the vehicle before it's final impact. I can't explain it. When you should die you are spared. Who can explain that.

I slowly painfully got to my feet. My back was soaked. I ached all over. It was still raining lightly, but it was quiet, save for the sound of crickets. Normally at this point, you'd say, "I was just happy to be alive." But I can't say that, because I wasn't. I looked up at the highway. In the midst I could make out the truck like a big hulking shipwreck, the front cab bent as if its neck was snapped.