There must have been a moment, he thought, a moment where the car might have slowed down, sounded a warning, and she might have jumped out of the way just in time. But there’s always a calm before the storm.
As it happened there was such a moment, but her bare feet were glued to the pavement, her eyes were pointed upwards toward the stars, and her ears were perfectly deaf. As the car sped towards her, the following thoughts flashed in her mind:
3.0 seconds—
The beauty of the stars,
the possibility of life on another planet,
a plane passing overhead across
a cloud obscuring the moon.
2.5 seconds—
Places and things to see:
Prague, Manila, Jamaica,
Castel Sant’Angelo, Holland,
the beach, Big Ben and
that boy she liked.
1.5 seconds—
She should have stayed;
maybe the doors
didn’t have to be locked
so tightly last night.
1.0 seconds—
did the boy she liked
think of her when
the head lights
and the screeching tire burns
bled into his mind?
0.5 seconds—
death is strange;
it plays with others,
chasing them in their veins
or filling it up with oozing goo
and flushes out their last breath
from the sighing lungs.
for some, it’s an honorable death;
death by the pleasant sleep,
death from the bullet that shot through
with enough air from their punctured lungs
to breathe out
their last words or two.
but for her, it wasn’t a fairytale;
her last breath was taken away
by the kiss from the car’s exhausted lips -
she saw the boy she liked, the Big ben,
Jamaica, Prague, Holland, the beach, everything.
is it possible to be in such euphoria, a tragic delirium
moments before those tires burn through her skin?
0.0 seconds—
[blank]
No one rushed to her bed side until it was too late but the doctor told him that she had the bravest smile; one that was even brighter than the blazing sun.
-
italics: unsaidunknown
regular text: wolves-xiii
