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Wed 26 Dec 2007 12:16
by Kevin McGehee
2 comments
[Fiction]
Completed
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In this, the first of the exercises mentioned here, the challenge is to write a 600-word story from the first-person point of view, but severely limiting the use of the first-person pronoun. The “I” nevertheless has to be important to the story.
This will indeed be a challenge.
The truck from the oncoming lane was obviously out of control, veering wildly across the median and causing the cars ahead of me to swerve frantically to avoid being struck. Brake lights flashed, horns honked, metal crunched and glass shattered, yet the behemoth roared on leaving chaos in his wake.
For a moment then, there was a kind of shocked stillness as witnesses and victims took in what had just happened before them. Doors that could open suddenly did, all over the scene, and bodies that could move did so hastily, checking on the condition of those whose doors didn’t open, bodies that didn’t seem to be moving. A man in a dark suit leaned in through the shattered windshield of a sports car, then pulled back out and shouted to a dazed-looking woman who’d been riding with him in a rented Ford that had somehow escaped damage. The woman took a moment to comprehend, then pulled a cell phone from her purse and dialed 911. Soon dozens of others were on their own phones, describing the events of the previous moments, and the conditions of people still trapped in their cars.
It would be a few minutes before sirens would be heard—this stretch of highway was miles from the nearest intersecting road—but given the magnitude of the destruction the response would be massive.
Those that had the knowledge and the means to give first aid were now doing so, seemingly unaware that the bright July afternoon had begun to dim, its heat slowly leeching away to a strange kind of chill. An inconstant breeze had come up, though it didn’t seem to stir the trees—the voices of those helping and being helped had begun to rise and fall unpredictably. Whatever thin overcast was drifting in, it seemed to bring that breeze with it, softly carrying voices away for a moment, then as the dimness receded the voices returned. Yet so focused were the good Samaritans on the hurt and frightened around them that none gave any sign of noticing the change in the weather.
A sudden blast of siren—the ambulances were already on the scene. Perhaps some had been coming up the highway already when the accident began. Paramedics fanned out across the wreckage-strewn pavement, determining the number and severity of the injured. A yellow tarp was hastily laid across the crushed sports car as the dark-suited man comforted his female companion. They grieved for a complete stranger whose path had been intertwined with theirs by a runaway truck. Or they grieved for themselves, that they had been unable to help the driver of the car in the time it took for the ambulance to arrive.
The weather was getting worse, an unseasonable fog making the scene not only dim but increasingly indistinct. Oddly, the fog seemed accompanied by a stronger breeze, for now the voices of individuals even nearby often could not be heard. Yet rescue workers doffed jackets and some even their shirts. The stress and effort of their work made the perspiration glisten in the wan sunshine despite a deep, bone-chilling cold that spoke more of winter in the far north than high summer in the South. Such weird conditions must have contributed somehow to what had happened here; strange weather often causes people to do inexplicable things.
Another blast of siren: a victim had been extracted from a wrecked minivan and was on the way to a hospital. She had been alone in the vehicle, having dropped off her husband at work or her children at school. No doubt someone would be waiting and worrying, fearing the worst until some word came from her doctors.
In the gathering gloom as the once-bright day faded to an unsettlingly early dusk, a sharp but distant voice called out. Then suddenly there was a face, eyes intent, lips moving in time to that faraway, long-ago voice, but if there were words they were too quickly lost on that now-continuous wind. His care and toil to save lives and soothe hurt had so drenched his head with sweat that not even that howling gale that stole away his words could stir his bright hair, which in the fullness of day must have been bright red.
As full darkness descended at last, he turned away and shouted to his brethren with such force that I should have heard it even over the wind, but did not.
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