Word

Maybe I am invincible, I thought to myself, merely one of the many thoughts racing through my head after my car accident last summer. This was the second car that I had totaled in my life, the first of which was when I was two, and the second time that I have walked away without a scratch. Maybe I just can't be hurt.

I woke up that day slightly after noon, as most teenagers do in the middle of the summer. It was a relatively gloomy day in August, a day that everything you try to do seems to be going slow. It had been raining all night, and what was left behind was a dark, gray sky and a tangibly thick, musky air. All there was to look forward to on this dreary day was work later on that evening.

As the day went on, and work drew nearer, the weather had not improved, and neither, for that matter, had my attitude. I was still moping sleepily around my house with the knowledge that work was drawing close, but not the slightest recollection of what the actual time was. With a dejected look at the clock my eyes shot open, and within seconds I had retrieved my keys from my jacket and leapt up the stairs towards the main door. Not having realized the time sooner I was in a frantic rush to get to work for I live fifteen minutes away and I was nearly late without having even entered my vehicle yet.

Having only had my drivers license for a short amount of time I took to the wet dirt roads with as much vigor as a race car driver on race day. I went soaring down the hill and around the corner with my lack of responsibility and new found freedom of driving right there with me. All I knew was that if I didn't go fast enough, I would be late for work. Skidding slightly around the first bend meant nothing to me other than that I could handle the roads; after all, I did drive on them every day. I knew every turn and every bump out there, and nothing was going to slow me down. Nevertheless, it hadn't been two miles out of my driveway when the loose gravel slid underneath my tires on a turn slightly over the crest of a hill, and after an inexperienced series of overcorrected turns the car went nose first into the ditch on the side of the road.

As soon as I could feel the impact of the car hitting the side of the road, time seemed to slow down. My body locked up and my hands gripped the steering wheel harder than they ever had before. My arms were stiff and I was convinced that I would not be moved from my seat. I could feel myself get weightless as the car struck the bank and went soaring straight up into the air. Looking straight down at the ground through the front windshield I could see, through squinted eyes, the airbag burst out in my face while piles of dirt and shattered glass filled my lap and every crevice of the car. It landed with