Trigger Warning: Drunk driving and grief.
It was a normal day until that dreadful phone call.
My smile reached my eyes with joyful sparkles;
My chest filled with positive clarity in deep breaths.
The work radio sang sweet, smooth melodies to me.
Hours passed on the sofa during the after-hours of the 9 to 5.
The screen flashed frantically, interrupting my doom scrolling deemed “relaxation.”
The voice on the other line forced an eruption of volcanic tears.
The words aunt, car accident, log truck, bad, and one has passed away brought nausea to the surface.
I had one million questions projectile vomiting into the receiver.
Was my aunt breathing?
Did her son know, and is he okay?
And the worst quizzing statement:
Is she suffering?
The answer to all lines of worry was yes, followed by my hysterics.
The driver fueled himself with alcohol, rewarding himself while on the job.
A long day of trucking and being cruel to awareness;
He wanted to be praised, after it all.
Not caring to fix his headlights on the log truck before starting his destruction.
A known issue within the company: not caring for safety regulations, protecting their truckers over others.
On the small streets of Brunswick, people honk their horns at his reckless driving.
Once he stepped into the truck, he decided he was playing God and may everyone feel his wrath.
The city’s natural light grew gloomy, leaving him to approach the asphalt.
The light guiding him was not in front of his truck, but in the bottom of a beer bottle.
My aunt pulled away from her son’s job, seeing he was too busy for her daily visit, before heading home on her hourly commute.
She did everything right.
Approaching slowly to the stop sign and checking for oncoming traffic.
With the press of a pedal, she crossed the road to get into her lane.
To her surprise, the devil had possessed a weak man who decided in his driveway that her life and the other young man’s did not matter.
Approaching from the dark pit he crawled from, he slammed into her compact car.
His logs flew and crashed, claiming an innocent man’s life and mangling my innocent aunt.
Knowing the pain he caused, the deranged beast ran into a gas station, anxiously eating stolen mints.
He left my family member and the young man in the center of the disaster.
What “good man” sinks to the level of cowardly actions, running from the pain he created by choosing alcohol and motor vehicles?
That excuse of a human being is sickening.
Mom was the first to identify my aunt’s car, minutes after the accident.
My cousin’s early passing memorial sticker called out, “Save her.”
Mom stayed with her sister and held her hand the entire time, as a good person does.
Even when my aunt was life flighted, my mom was there for her.
The hospital worked magic to undo what the monster had done to her.
They knew she was unworthy of such trauma.
Why did the drunk driver not value her or the man’s life enough to hide his keys for the night?
Days have passed, and my aunt lies on her hospital bed, speechless in the worst way.
The internet defends scum like him for his proud trucking journey while my aunt hears only prayers from her loved ones.
She is fighting for her life because an uncaring man drove his log truck with defective headlights, resulting in them being cut off drunkenly.
To the man that played God that day, you will never see forgiveness from us.
No matter how good a person they say you are in their imaginary world, we see through it.
Last time I saw my aunt, she told me to smile more.
I’ll smile again when I hear her voice calling my name.
Elyssa Latham (she/her) is a woman of words, and reader. Elyssa’s works express strong emotions that people go through and get the reader to feel those emotions alongside her. She wants readers to take away that it is okay to allow yourself to feel and that you can craft art out of pain.
Featured image by Mason Wildfang on Unsplash.
