Thoughts From the Crash

(Trigger warning: gore. I originally wanted to do much more with this piece, but after some revisions with my lovely friends, I found that it was starting to pain me to rework this. I want to lay it here and give it rest. I want to talk about it for sure! But I also need to take my own time with it. In the meantime, here's the piece about the car crash I was in while abroad in Thailand. You're welcome to ask questions, but please be mindful that I might not respond. Thank you for reading!)

When you wake, you are screaming.

You tumble forward, out of your car seat, hitting the seat in front of you, your crossed legs jumbled from sleep, your backpack against you. You find yourself on the floor of the car, pinned, daylight streaming in, glass, screaming, tire screeches echoing in your disoriented mind. Your grandparents shriek for you, asking if you are okay, and reflexively you check to see if you can move your toes, your fingers. Scrapes are already lighting your leg aflame. There’s a red-hot bump in your lip from where you connected with the seat in front of you. "I'm okay," you shout, all limbs intact. You turn and something guttural leaves your mouth, something primal ripping at your throat as you see the woman next to you, her face open like a torn rubber mask, lying prone over the seat where you were moments ago. Blood comes like a stream, like a burst balloon, on your backpack, your clothes, your body. Her mouth opens and closes like a fish.

Welcome to Thailand.

4 hours ago, you were in the Thailand airport, waiting for the taxi. The woman and her husband were there, on their way to the same wedding as you. It was 5 AM. You were exhausted.

When the taxi arrived, you clambered for the window seat. Your grandmother said she’d sit in the middle, next to you, but the woman said she would happily sit there instead. Your grandmother tried to argue, but the woman was kind. She sat next to you, in the taxi, and you fell asleep.

Your grandfather pokes his head up from the seat in front of you, begging again to know that you're okay. "I'm okay, but she's not!" you gasp out, pointing at the woman. Your grandfather’s face contorts with frantic fear when he sees her fate, an expression that threatens to send you in a blind panic. But physically, he's fine, somehow. Your grandparents have barely a scratch.

You hear moaning from the side, and stretch to look over your shoulder. There the husband lies, blood down his face like a river, legs pinned from... you're not quite sure, but you see the scale of the damage to the car. The left hand door has been shredded from the back of a truck, steel rods shoving their way in. A broken stage background, out of place, wrong. Your grandparents demand the driver call for an ambulance. None of you have service. No one speaks English.

In the thick of it all, you turn back towards the woman. You know her name now, know it from the soft calls for her from her husband. Your eyes focus on her splayed hand, outstretched. How alone you all feel. Without hesitation, you take her hand in yours. She squeezes.

"She's okay," you call over your shoulder to the husband. "She's breathing, and she just squeezed my hand, so she's okay and... and still with us." The words feel scripted. You don't know how to act. Your lungs begin to hyperventilate, but you think that might not be helpful, so you stop. There are no tears. "Please let her be okay," you say. The words are empty, and they peter out before you even finish the sentence. You wish for something like religion, something that could hold you in this. There is nothing.

Your grandparents have left the car. You cannot leave as easily. You sit, face turned away from the woman. You can hear her breathing, bubbling. You imagine how much pain she must be feeling. There have been moments where you have felt so much pain, you could not speak. She must feel like this. You continue to hold her hand. Blood drips like a clock.

She stirs, blood spurts, and you scream. Your grandparents immediately call for you. Shame burns on your shoulders, as you confirm you're alright. You hope the woman doesn't know it was for fear of her, of her bloodied eye rolling back into her head, of her cheek limp and loose against blood and muscle and broken jaw. The husband cries like a broken cello. There's no strength in it, no breath to sustain it, no gasping or tears. He watches her sag against the side and you turn away once more.

There's a moment when her hand goes limp. "Mira," you say, the first time you've said her name, and it rolls around like anesthetic on your tongue. "Mira?" Every feeling is foreign now. You squeeze her hand.

With effort, she squeezes back. Her hand is soft, untouched by blood, and you are relieved. If nothing else, she is still alive.

There are still no police. Your grandfather tells you to get out of the car. You consider how you might do this, and ask him to take your backpack from you. He obliges, reaching over the seat. You uncross your legs, now. There is no way out of the car except the trunk. Glass crackles as you rise from your nook. Some old fear of broken dishes rises in you, and you swallow.

Your grandfather calls for you. He and the driver have taken the luggage from the trunk, but the back set of seats have come loose. It will not be easy.

"I don't want to leave her," you say as you realize it. You don't want her to feel alone. You want her to know that, if nothing else, you are with her to bear this. What will you do once you leave this shattered van? All you can think is how afraid you would be if you were her. "I don't want to leave her!" you plead and her hand shoots up, grabbing at your dupatta, the white scarf you have around your shoulders, and a sickening whimper wretches its way from the bottom of your stomach. Your grandfather demands you leave, and you hear the sirens.

He and the driver (the driver, was this his fault? what happened?) try to hold the back seats up, but you tell them to get back. You are missing a flip flop (those are your only pair of flip flops, have you broken any teeth?), so it is with your glass-caked foot that you press down on the seats, anchoring them. With the other foot, you apply pressure to the backs of the seats, slowly pushing them down, giving you the movement to exit the trunk (you have seen a superhero do this, like riding a wave) and you hop down, limping to the luggage (there are people all around, is your leg broken?), and your grandmother is there, and she pushes the hair from your face (when you brush your hair again, you will find pieces of hay, and bits of metal, and glass, so much glass) and hugs you like it startles her, like she is shocked, like the hug is happening to her. Some of the nearby people have found a first aid kid, and they begin to clean you up, pointing at the blood, and they do not understand that it isn't yours (is that a safety hazard? where are you all?) and the police are here, and the ambulance, finally (was it really 30 minutes? it feels like something, something), and they try to ask you questions that you cannot answer, and someone says Google Translate (please stop taking pictures, why are there random people here taking pictures? you are not a zoo animal) and you hold out your hand because it will only understand your American accent, not your grandparents' frantic Indian accent. The police are asking for your passports, and yours is in your backpack (where is your backpack?) your grandfather asks you where your backpack is (you gave it to him when you first stood) and you tell him that you gave it to him, and he denies it (this is not his fault, he is 81 years old) and you snap at him that you did indeed fucking give it to him (don't swear at your grandparents) and he says that well, he doesn’t know where it is (it has your passport and your favorite stuffed animal) and you shout that it is probably in the front seat where he left it, and he leaves, and suddenly, you are crying.

When the tears come, it's a relief. You know these tears. They accompanied you in the first breath you took, and they have been with you every moment you have felt alone. This is something you know how to do. This is familiar.

"Don't cry," your grandmother snaps.

"Don't cry?" you repeat, and something shifts in you. "We were just in a car accident. I'm going to have feelings about that!"

With those words, some 22 years of anger crashing through, my grandmother apologizes, holding me. My grandfather is returning with my backpack, and with deft fingers I provide my passport to the police.

Time passes like it was late for a deadline, and all too soon, Mira and her husband are gone, cut out of the car, and transported to the hospital. Someone points to my shoeless foot, I tell them it's in the car. I suddenly have a sharp picture of it lodged under the front seat. Despite everything, my brain continues to notice, even when I don't. We are loaded up into another car, a new driver takes us, and we travel in stilted silence.

When we arrive at the hotel, lively music begins to play as employees swarm out of their hiding spots. Women clad in golden attire, swaying their hips, beckoning with perfect smiles as men bang on drums, dancing. We exit the car and the dancing falters. I wonder what we must have looked like to them.

The wedding passes, and people complain that I don't talk much. I don't eat much either. I sleep too heavily, and I pick glass off my feet. I leave the wedding dinner early, and call my parents, and when the fireworks start, I am left shaking, gasping for breath, terrified. There is a wild animal in me, cornered and caged, and it tells me I am going to die.

"I don't know why fireworks are making me feel like this," I sob to my father. "I'm not a war vet."

"Maybe it reminds you of the sound of the crash."

But I don't remember the sound. All I remember is her. Her delicate nails, the blood on my backpack, her shuddering face. The moments she and I were alone. The many minutes, according to the timing.

When it comes time to leave, I panic again, getting into another car. When my grandmother sees my face, hers twists into something like disgust. We all experienced the crash, my grandfather tells me. We are all recovering.

No one at the wedding knows those moments alone. Mira is still in a Bangkok hospital, a foreign country, spine still crushed, face still torn. I wonder if she will remember it after. I wonder if her children know. I want to tell them that she stayed awake through it, that she was brave, that she was strong. It's like a dream of someone, a dream the other will never remember. A ghost memory that haunts me, a secret I must keep.

But when I leave that hotel, I close my eyes and imagine a world of my own creation, the millions I have built. I hold on, despite any ploys, despite any religion that tries to take credit. My shell has not broken. I have built far too much to let it come crashing down now. The car kicks into gear and we leave.