Short Story: 'A Year Since the Earth Shattered'

 by Dawn Sands

In five minutes’ time, something earth-shattering is going to happen.

It has to. Why would I still be here otherwise, a year after my life was supposed to have ended? A few months ago, an old woman told me it must have been God’s random act of kindness - but I have never seen it that way. Never in a year have I looked back and considered it a benefit that I lived; counted myself lucky that it was them that died and not me; that, twenty minutes before the crash, I fought with Dan to sit on the right, not the left.

That was a year and fifteen minutes ago. I can pinpoint the exact moment that the original damage was done. 

A year ago, the weather was very similar to the way it is now: a torrent of rain hurtling towards my window and scattering into a million tiny droplets.

I fix my eyes on one individual raindrop, letting my pupils wander out of focus until the blur of the rain and the blur of my tears are one and the same. Through this watery mess I can see the Christmas lights draped merrily across the eaves of the houses opposite, their colours amassing into one blurred, ethereal synthesis of blues and whites and greens beyond that spiteful film of salt and water. If I gaze for long enough, I can convince myself that the lights almost form the shape of a singular, watchful eye, visible to me only through a blend of tears.

Not the eyes again. There was a time when I thought the ever-returning image of an eye had eradicated itself from my mind: Dan’s playfully begrudging eyes as I barged him out of my seat; Erin’s panic-stricken eyes as she couldn’t swerve in time; Jason’s glassy eyes as his head struck the tarmac and blood seemed to trickle from his skull. This time, it is the collective eye of my judgmental neighbours: You should be dead too. They know what happened; they even think they know more than me, at times: it wasn’t your fault; you’re coping with it so well; you’re lucky to be alive. How do they know?

Three minutes.

If nothing had happened, one year minus three minutes ago, what significance might the date 16th December have had to me? Would I even remember this car journey? What snippets of my history, that I remember now because of what happened afterwards, might have been lost to me? Maybe this is what the old woman meant when she told me this was God’s random act of kindness; that I would remember certain intricacies of my life story that might otherwise have been lost into the void. But don’t most of life’s experiences end up in that emptiness eventually: that liminal space where escaped memories go, compiled of half a distorted, fading laugh or a forgotten child’s first lungful of air? And in that case, what makes this one any different?

That’s how I know that, in three minutes’ time, something earth-shattering is going to happen.

Two minutes.

I leaned over to snatch the can from Jason’s hand; I knocked it, and it spilt all over his fingers. He swore at me. “My hand’s going to be all sticky now,” he said.

“Sorry,” I smirked.

As I leaned back on my chair, I caught sight of the shadows formed by the crossing over of the headlamps in the rain: three dark, hooded ghosts stretched on the road in front of me; fragmented and distorted by the water on the windscreen, but still unequivocally there. 

It is as if those ghosts and I could not live in conjunction with each other: the three hooded figures I saw cast upon the surface of the road were a premonition of what was to come, and because I had seen that premonition, there was no way to stop it from happening.

One minute.

One minute until all the dread of this past year either dwindles down into a slow and painless stop or heightens to a wavering culmination. One minute until my fears are either quelled or maximised. One minute until God’s random act of kindness is either unveiled in glory or abandoned in desolation.

Thirty seconds. 

I wonder if the neighbours can see me with more than just the collective, judgmental eye I can make out through the blur of raindrops on my window. I wonder if they’re each watching me individually as I rock back and forth, or if I am miles from the forefront of their minds. Why should they remember this date as well as I do? Do they remember exactly what they were doing, one year minus thirty seconds ago? I glance at the digital clock on my table, frantically flashing the time in luminous red.

Twenty seconds.

Ten seconds.

Did Erin foresee it, even at this point? Did she suspect, as she tossed her head back and laughed, the potential of her youth abounding, that in ten seconds’ time, one wrong swerve might be all her bounteous childhood’s undoing?

Five seconds.

Four seconds.

Three seconds.

Two seconds.

One second. I screw up my eyes and brace for impactー

A slow beat. I open my eyes again. Gradually, I become aware of my breathing; haggard and rough, my every heartbeat like a wrecking-ball striking at my chest. The glowing clock continues to count the seconds. The rain still hammers at the windowpane. My head swimming, I collapse backwards onto my bed; it heaves beneath my weight. 

Nothing has changed. Nothing earth-shattering has happened. Where, then, is God’s random act of kindness, and do I have to live another year like this?

Maybe this is not something that can be reviewed on a yearly basis. Maybe God’s act of kindness is a gradual healing process. But on nights like this, deadly puddles of water glistening on the surface of the road, it seems that that cannot be further from the truth.