Severed Links by Susan Buffum
I stand with my hands shoved deep into
the pockets of my gray hoodie, a cold drizzle trickling through my
short-cropped hair, my cold, white fingers gripping the icy chain link fence as
I stare at the twisted wreckage of Lucas’ mother’s small SUV. If I didn’t know
it was her car, hadn’t known what I was looking for, I wouldn’t have recognized
it. It’s crushed like an aluminum soda can from having tumbled down into a
ravine. The roof is pried back like the lid of a sardine can. Three of the four
doors are missing, probably stacked elsewhere behind the fence. The cargo door
is smashed in. There is starred and crackled glass in what’s left of the
windshield, and dark smears that send a deep shiver down my spine. It has to be
blood. It cannot be anything else but blood. The interior spaces look too
compacted to have ever given anyone leg room, elbow room, or head room. It
looks as if an irate giant lifted the car and crushed it in his fist and then
cast it aside, disappointed by how fragile the metal, fiberglass, glass, and
bits of chrome were.
I draw a shuddery breath, the cold links
of the fence biting into my fingers, but I can’t let go. If I let go I may very
well drop straight to the wet ground, curl up in a ball and cry like a baby.
Lucas, Charlie, and Lisa died in this vehicle two nights ago. We’d all been together.
Micah’s parents had gone to a convention over the long weekend, so Micah had thrown
a party and invited everyone. Lisa had been the one to convince me to go with
her, Lucas, and Charlie, the boys being brothers. Lucas had been Lisa’s date. They’d
been going together for a couple of months already. I’d been Charlie’s date for
the night since he’d just broken up with Brenna. He hadn’t wanted to go stag
and look like some sort of loser, so Lisa had begged and pleaded with me to go
as his date. I’d never been much of a partier, but she’d worn down my
resistance. Finally, I’d agreed to go.
And this is how it ended—in a wreck. It
had been raining that night, too, a downpour. The roads had been wet, the
puddles deep. Lucas had nearly lost control of the SUV halfway to Micah’s
house. Somehow he’d managed to fight the wheel and correct the skid, regaining
control of the vehicle. I’d buckled my seatbelt then, earning an eye roll from
Charlie who had been sitting in the back with me, Lisa riding shotgun up front.
“Seatbelts save lives,” I’d mumbled.
“So do life jackets, but I don’t see any
in the back or I’d offer you one. Raining like a bastard out there. Wouldn’t
want little ol’ you to fall in a puddle and drown.” He had been more of a jerk
than his brother by far. The longer I’d been in his presence the more I’d
understood why Brenna had dropped him like a hot potato. I’d thought I might
like to find a dark corner to hide in once we arrived where no one would notice
me or bother me.
Lucas, Lisa, and Charlie are dead. No
one survived the accident. The SUV had hit a huge puddle on a sharp curve
coming down Mountain Road. The car had slid, at too great a speed, against the
guardrail which had been damaged the previous winter and had already been
leaning toward the ravine before the SUV broadsided it and then tumbled over
it, plunging down the craggy rocks into the gulley below where a steady stream
of water flowed—run off from the torrential rain.
I don’t know how search and rescue had ever
gotten down the steep face of the ravine, or how they’d even gotten their
equipment down there. I can picture the scene in my mind lit from above by
searchlights, huge shadows everywhere, the men’s own shadows like big, black bugs
moving over the wreckage. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to respond to
an accident scene like that and know there’s nothing you can do to help anyone
trapped inside a car all crumpled up like an aluminum foil ball with sharp
edges everywhere, broken glass, and the smell of gasoline strong in your nose.
I suppose a tow truck had winched the
wreckage up the rugged, stony face of the unforgiving cliff, or maybe they’d
had to get one of those big construction cranes. The guardrails are probably still
down, a row of orange barrels providing a rather pathetic barrier between the
road and the dead drop beyond the neon orange and shiny bright reflector bands.
When I was a child I liked to go
mountain climbing and hiking with my parents and kid brother. I was always the
fearless one who’d liked to stand on the edge of a cliff, arms outspread, a grin
spread across my face as I gazed out over the land below and beyond my perch,
imagining myself with wings, imagining myself taking a few running steps,
flapping those huge wings and suddenly having nothing but empty space beneath
my feet and only air and wind currents beneath my wings.
In seventh grade, when my safety harness
had failed due to it being improperly secured by a supervising adult and I’d fallen
off a climbing wall and broke my collar bone my love of heights had pretty much
disappeared. I’d begun to appreciate the ground beneath my feet more from then
on, much to the disappointment of my kid brother and father who still enjoyed
hiking and mountain climbing. Mom had broken the bones in her lower leg in a nasty
fall when I was twelve and had given up the family climbs, but she’d still
loved going to the beach and swimming.
I don’t know why I’m thinking about my
family right now. I should be thinking about how devastated Lucas and Charlie’s
family is, how shattered Lisa’s family must be. I wonder if there’ve been
repercussions for Micah, who was the host of the party where everyone drank to
excess, smoked pot, and did God only knows whatever else was being surreptitiously
passed around. I’d had a beer, given to me by Charlie as if he’d been presenting
me with a challenge I could not back down from. I hadn’t wanted him labeling me
a baby or a killjoy, so I’d opened it and sipped it over the next hour. He’d
brought me another, again holding it out to me as if offering a challenge, a
gleam in the depths of his eyes. Either it was a gleam or he was already pretty
drunk, or possibly high. I’d tried to find another place to sort of hide in,
but he’d found me and shoved a third bottle of beer at me, and then stood there
while I drank it down in long swallows because he’d wanted me to prove that I
was drinking the beer and not pouring it out into the potted tree I was half
hidden behind.
I know my parents would be destroyed if
they lost me, or Kip, my brother. They’ve always been proud of us, always been
supportive of us, and have always shared their love of life with us, including
us in everything they enjoy doing. Unlike a lot of teens, I love my parents and
like spending time with them because it’s never boring. We go places, do
things, and have adventures. I have a huge scrapbook in my room on a shelf
above my desk that’s chock full of pictures, things I’ve written about our
adventures, pamphlets, brochures, and little mementoes I’ve collected, like
beautiful feathers, a snakeskin, a skeletal rodent tail, pieces of mica and so
forth, anything that could lie fairly flat between the pages. Beside the
scrapbook is my treasure box. My father made it for me in his workshop behind
the garage. It’s just a basic, rectangular box with a hinged lid and a clasp
that he stained a warm honey-gold and reddish-brown. He’d carved Kat’s
Treasures in an oval cartouche on the lid. The box is crammed full of pretty
rocks, seashells, and other bits and pieces of nature that have followed me
home.
It gives me a quivery, hollow feeling in
the pit of my stomach to think about how heartbroken my parents would be if I
died in an accident like this one. Lucas should never have been driving. He had
been stupid drunk, or high, laughing and brushing off any concerned remarks,
saying he was perfectly fine. Charlie had been practically comatose. A couple
of seniors had had to stuff him into the backseat, tucking his limp legs inside
before swinging the door closed. Lisa had been giggly and acting silly. Kyle
had leaned into the passenger seat and given her a kiss that had left people
wondering whether or not he’d have a black eye on Monday when Lucas showed him
how he’d felt about that lip-lock. Doors had been slammed shut, merry voices
had chorused a slew of goodnights and safe rides home! And off Lucas had sped
into the raw, wet night.
Precious cargo. Had anyone thought about
the precious cargo he’d been carrying in that SUV? I think about it now as cold
rain dribbles down my cheeks. Lisa had been the apple of her parent’s eye. She
had been an honors student, a shoe-in for valedictorian. She had already been
looking at elite colleges, knowing she could pretty much get into any one of
them that her heart desired. I’d been starting to look at local colleges, too.
I was smart enough, but felt I didn’t need to go to a big name university or
school, that local was good enough for me. I hadn’t chosen a major yet, but
thought something in chemistry or physics would suit me best. I was a geek
girl, after all.
It’s now just past dusk. The yard lights
look hazy up around the lamp portion, shrouded in misty rain down the poles and
into the spheres of light pooling on the shimmering ground. I should go home,
but I can’t seem to pry my fingers loose from the cold links of the fence. I
feel almost melded to the chain link. “I need to go,” I murmur.
“We all need to move on,” a voice says
from inside the yard, startling me badly. I shift my eyes from the glowing,
shimmery lamplight to the dark hulk of the wreck before me on the opposite side
of the fence. A dark figure is standing on the far side. The gate is padlocked
so I think it has to be one of the guys who works here, that’s he’s noticed me
standing at the fence looking at the wreckage of the SUV. It’s like the bulk of
a dead bear devoid of fur, all carcass, shattered bone, and torn tissue.
“I’m going,” I say.
The figure is moving from the far side
of the car, coming around the back side of it. Backlit, I can’t make out his
age, but he sounds young, not much older than I am. “Let’s go,” he says, making
a motion with his arm. “Lisa, Charlie, come on. Kat’s here now. We can go.”
Lisa? Charlie? It jolts me to realize
this guy’s voice sounds familiar to my ear. He sounds like Lucas! But how can
that be? No one could have survived that accident! Not Lucas. Not Lisa. Not
Charlie. Not… “No!” I cry. “No!”
“It’s time. We’ve been waiting for you. We
didn’t feel we should leave you behind.”
It comes back to me like a stuttering
film segment about to spin off the reel, me climbing awkwardly into the rear
seat behind Lucas, practically sitting on the arm rest of the door because
Charlie had toppled over across the seat and I hadn’t wanted his head in my lap
when he started vomiting during the ride home. Charlie hadn’t had a seatbelt
on. I hadn’t been able to pull mine around me and get it behind his bulk to
latch it. I’d just gripped the handle above the door window and held on for
dear life as Lucas had sped off into the night.
I had been in that car.
“Let go of the fence, Kat,” Lisa says,
her voice quiet and gentle from just behind me. “You got thrown out of the car.
You’ve been in the hospital, but now you’re free to move on with us.”
“I don’t want to go!” I cry.
Behind me, Charlie chuffs a quick snort
through his nose. “None of us do. But, it is what it is. Let’s go.”
Lisa’s hand comes around me. She
struggles to pry my white fingers loose from the links. “Let go now,” she urges
softly. “It’ll be all right.”
No, she’s wrong. It’ll never be all
right. I’ve destroyed my family. I’ve broken them into a million pieces,
shattered them, and thrown them into the abyss. And for what? For what?
“I can’t…” I say, my voice a whine of
agony. “I can’t!”
The fence bulges slightly, rattles
softly, and Lucas is now on this side of it with the rest of us. “Kat, we hung
around and waited for you, but now it’s time for all of us to leave. There’s
nothing here for us anymore. So, come on, let go of the fence and let’s move
on.”
I tilt my head back, looking up into the
rain, into the dark sky above. There are no stars. There is no moon. There is
nothing there anymore. “All right,” I say, my voice bleak with sadness, raspy
with regret. A hundred thousand apologies rattle back down my throat before I
lower my head again. Useless apologies. It’s pointless to ask for forgiveness.
I sincerely doubt my parents will ever forgive me for being so stupid. “Let’s
go,” I say more roughly, more resentfully than I mean it to sound. In the back
of my mind I’m desperately hoping that these are not the people I’m doomed to
spend all eternity with. They would never have been my choice. I want to be
with my family, but they’re still here on earth and very much alive. Nothing
holds me here any longer except my own stubbornness and selfishness. “Let’s
go!” I cry, pushing past Lisa and Lucas, shoving Charlie aside as I stride by.
As I walk past the auto salvage and
collision building I see glowing forms in the windows, moving like we’re
moving. The thought runs through my mind that the building is haunted by the
ghosts of all the victims of accidents, all the people who died in the wrecked
vehicles hauled to this lot. Fleetingly, I think I want to stay and join them
in a mass haunt, but now that I’m moving there’s a sense of being drawn toward
something. It’s coming from somewhere in the middle of me, my center point or
core, I suppose. It’s like there’s a compass and the hand has spun around and
set me on a new course. I just have to trust it to get me to where I’m going
next.
This is like a terrible and frightening
adventure, I try to convince myself, this walking into the unknown. This time,
I’m heading off without any of my family with me. It is a bitter blend of
despair and regret I feel. The loss of them is tremendous, however, the more
steps I take forward, the less sharp the sting of loss becomes.
I am fading from this world, materializing
in what lies beyond but, although I’m not okay with it, I do understand. I made
my last choice as a living being that night. I have no choices remaining to me.
I’ve become a statistic in this world—traffic fatality; and left profound
sadness as my legacy.
copyright 2021 by Susan Buffum
