by Lundy Burge
did.
“Ah man…”
“It’s okay,” she said, then pointed to a spot of ground besides the wreck, “You fell there. Once you wake up, you’ll be in a lot of pain, but another car is coming. The man driving it will help you. Be absolutely sure to tell him you have no pain in your head, neck, or back.” Almost as an afterthought, she said, “There was nothing you could do. Besides, he died almost instantaneously. Hardly felt a thing.”
Todd instantly got into position, sprawled awkwardly on the ground, feet pointed towards the car. It was a strange position, yet it felt right. That worried him a little bit.
He couldn’t help but asking, “Are you an angel?”
“No,” she said, and then she was gone. Todd didn’t have to look up to know that.
He laid his head down.
He grunted lowly and loudly as the pain swept over him. He tried not to dwell on it, but it felt as if he had just gotten brutally mugged by a bunch of stereotypically leather jacket-donned hoodlums. He definitely broke a leg, maybe a rib or two. Feeling something odd on the bridge between nose and mouth, he ran his tongue gently across his upper lip. Sure enough, he tasted blood.
He was suddenly blinded by two equally intense lights. The car, dark-colored pick-up, drove a little past him and pulled to the shoulder. As the woman had said, a man got out, his face clearly emanating concern. After many failed attempts to call for an ambulance in such a shoddy signal, the man reluctantly conceded that it would be best if it took Todd to the hospital himself, but only after making positively sure that he wouldn’t be paralyzed by a mishandling of a spinal cord injury (“No, I don’t have any pain in my neck, head, or back…”).
As the man started to help Todd up to an upright position on his now one good leg, he found his head had turned back to the car. It was then that he knew why the man wasn’t bothering to give any help to its driver.
The man was staring right back at Todd. His head rested dumbly on the steering wheel, mouth slightly open, eyes already glazing over as if flash-burnt by lightning. It would be discovered that a mechanical glitch caused his neck to be broken by the airbag.
Seeing that man dead in his car filled Todd with a lot of guilt, even though he was totally blameless.
It is true that it was very late at night. It is true that it had stormed very hard. It is true that Todd had fell asleep after working for many, many hours in a small secluded work shop which he referred to as a studio where he welded together various metal sculptures which was intend to put on sale in his friend’s gallery the following week, and upon realizing he had slept so late and that it was in the middle of a lightning storm more than put him in a hurry. It is also true that realizing he had left he had forgotten to lock the studio back up and that he had to go back through the mud and dark put him in even more of a frenzy. And it is true that his hood, which was up, might have obscured his vision.
All these facts are true, but have no relevance whatsoever towards what happened that night.
Observe, he had looked before trying to cross the street. The glare of the other car’s headlights didn’t appear until Todd had started his trek across the road, and they came upon him so fast (the car was being driven at insane speeds), and were so bright that they momentarily held him stunned and in blindness.
Face with these facts, we are led to believe that none of the incident up to this point is Todd Luxome’s fault.
Also faced with these facts, both Bob and Todd are left to figure out just what happened on that night to their respective dead men.
Birth of Pong
The Day After
