2. Life just got better - The first fatality is the kicker (IP)

Let’s talk about the other time I was driving this same road, the Great Western Highway, spaning 204 kilometres from Sydney to Bathurst, crossing the Blue Mountains.

This is one of those times I try not to think about that much, and now that I realise that, I think they are right that repression just makes things worse. When you remember those events, you verbalise them internally or externally, say, if you talking in group therapy – just as an example. You exchange the strong sense memories for weak words and phrases. I still see and smell everything, so you’ll have to just picture it, like I do.

I should have brought this up in group. Maybe I wouldn’t be where I am right now.

So picture it, the interior of a late model car, that’s me driving home after work, smoking and sipping from a hip-flask of mid range scotch. Picture the red sandstone cliff faces at night under yellow street lights. Picture rain and fog. And then the dark Australian bushland slopping away into dark-void valleys.

It's raining so hard my shitty windscreen wipers can't keep up - I can't see shit other than the strobing white dividing lines, springing into my headlights and swiftly disappearing under the hood. There is no one else on the road, it’s just me, the bottle, and the bitumen. Oh... and the radio.

The radio guy tells me that friendship is just a phone call away; it’s a social destination, a place for special guys to meet other special guys. Then more Supreme Court child sex allegations; then another Pitt Bull terrier destroyed another young girls face. Same old same old.

But here it comes, so forget me for a moment will you, and picture it. Picture it outside your body, outside of mine, like a ghost floating in the rain. Picture the shining bushland highway, quiet, picturesque. Then see the four 50 kilo cement bags stacked smack-bang in the middle of the east bound lane. Wonder what they are doing there. Then see beyond them through the night and rain and fog, see headlights come into view – that’s me. Then think of the speed of that car, the wake of spray it turns up, the blast of wind as it passes hurtling towards those stacked bags.

Imagine you’re in that driver’s seat. Hitting the brakes or turning the wheel, it just makes you lose control completely. The car’s front tires at forty five degree angles, skiing. Enjoy.

Feel your teeth mashed together. Feel all the muscles in your horrified face.

You get a victims eye view of impact; the sudden jolt that throws you forward effortlessly and the burst of dust that covers the windscreen and turns to a layer of wet cement. Think about something stupid like I did, think, this is like trying to find your bed just after turning out the light, you know, trying to remember where everything is and making the best guess you can. Only this time you’re surrounded by half a ton of steel travelling a hundred kilometres an hour.

Expect to meet a tree any moment, or a wall, or a cliff face, another car…

And then the car is off the road and something huge crashes through the windscreen.

For me, my first suicide attempt comes to mind. It’s like, your heart is in your throat and your full attention is given to that very moment - and in that moment, everything matters.

But that thing that came through the windscreen is something terrible; it’s a dude, it’s some guy all dressed in denim, and his head is half off his neck gushing blood, ruining you fresh pack of smokes, and the son of a bitch is looking up at you from between your legs.

Rain and wind; cement; blood and pain.

Then there is this pretty girl at the driver side window, and she’s screaming, ‘you fucking cunting fuck, he was the ONE.’ And the radio’s singing in a sweet falsetto, ‘We could be happy underground’.

Go to part 3 : http://www.abctales.com/story/white-dwarf/life-just-got-better-survival-...