I had this thought as I was driving home from work tonight: what if I'm already dead?
Now, this sounds like a pretty silly question. I'm driving home in traffic. I can imagine purgatory feeling like rush hour, but I'm still driving and thinking, so why would I worry about being dead?
It all started with a bad auto accident.
It's Christmas Day, 1993, and José Gonzales is driving his dad's new Ford Ranger pick-up truck eastbound on Macarthur Boulevard. Who knows where he's going? His contribution to this tale is that he's going 80 mph in a 40 mph zone and he's drunk as a skunk.
Meanwhile, my mom and I pile into our 1987 Dodge Caravan minivan, the car I learned to drive in. We head out to pick up my grandma and her husband for Christmas dinner. My dad is busy working his alchemical kitchen magic.
When we come to Bear Street and South Coast Drive I want to turn left on South Coast to get to Fairview, the main drag that leads my grandparents' mobile home park. My mom persuades me to continue on Bear, past the South Coast Plaza mall.
As we cross Sunflower still headed north on Bear, I notice the CompUSA in one of the old, failed South Coast Village buildings. The doors and windows are barred up. "How strange," I think.
Then I remember "It's Christmas Day. Duh."
Then I feel warm and fuzzy. Everything is black. I'm cocooned in soft furs as I rise through this euphoria towards grayness.
I open my eyes and it takes a moment for my brain to interpret what my eyes are sending it. The euphoria resolves into a thick, warm treacle that drags me down and slows everything to a crawl.
We're not moving. We're facing the wrong direction, south instead of north. We're in the middle of the intersection, Macarthur and Bear. The windshield is cracked. I'm bleeding. All those people standing on the street corner are staring.
My mom is groaning next to me. She tries to tell me something. I can't hear her. No. I can hear her. I just can't understand what she's saying.
My god, what have I done?
A police officer is standing next to me.
I ask him "Excuse me. What day is today?"
"It's Christmas Day, sir."
Time slithers along. Thoughts leave slimy, silver tracks through my brain.
A police officer is standing next to me.
I ask him "Excuse me. What day is today?"
"It's Christmas Day, sir. You've been in an accident."
Oh.
Interesting.
I don't see the other car.
Time moves in fits and starts.
I try to make an inventory of my surroundings. I don't get much farther than my lap covered in glass cubes.
EMTs remove my mom from the car.
It's a sunny day.
Where's the other car?
My god, what have I done?
Strong hands pull me from the car.
I'm on a back board.
That bastard EMT is cutting through my B-52 shirt I got at Castle Air Force Museum. Fucking hell. Watching my shirt get chopped is the worst part so far.
I listen to the siren from inside an ambulance.
Now I'm in an emergency room.
My mom and I talk, but I don't remember what we say.
A nurse or tech enters my field of vision holding what looks like a dildo.
"I need to put this in your bottom to check for internal bleeding."
Cold lube shock penetration!
I'm in a CAT scan machine. There's noise and dark.
Everyone is so businesslike.
And then I'm in a bed. I can't move my arm. My shoulder hurts so much that I feel I'm going to retch.
My dad is here. He talks to people around me. The sound of his voice is reassuring, but the pain won't go away. I can't think to tell anyone about it.
I fall asleep.
***
I apparently saw José Gonzales in time to leave three feet worth of rubber on the pavement. The skid mark then deflected a curious looking 90-degrees, indicating the exact point of impact.
José was drunk. Large landscaping boulders kept his dad's new Ford Ranger from crashing into someone's living room.
We never had that Christmas dinner.
José hit us just ahead of the front wheel on my side. He hit with such force that our minivan spun around and clipped his truck as he caromed by.
All that force broke both of my mom's arms and cracked her ribs as her seat belt hammered into her. It slammed the door against my side, denting the door impressively and damaging my shoulder. It bashed my head through the driver's side window. I was out colder than a dead fish.
This is what gets to me.
One minute I was there and the next I wasn't.
I remember everything up to about a quarter mile before the intersection where the accident happened. I remember looking past my mom riding in the passenger seat and seeing that CompUSA.
What if I never woke up? What if I woke up years later rather than minutes later?
Every once in a while, these thoughts trigger irrational panic attacks. The panic focuses on the questions "Are these my last few moments of consciousness?" and "What if I've already been in an accident and I'm already dead?" I understand the paradox, but understanding is drowned out by an irrational terror like some sort of precognitive fear.
The attacks have lessened over the years. Understandably, they only happen when I'm driving.
Some people would take all this as a consolation. One minute you're there, the next you're not.
It scares the hell out of me.
Pakeha