Dial Tone

Someone is crying. Neon yellow sobs and wails ringing through my ears. I can hear people shuffling about, crumpled paper through the spiky notes of blue and red. Melting butter pain slips down my temple until it rests and curdles behind my eye. The surrounding air is stuffy and tastes smoky, blurring and mixing until it resembles a messy watercolour painting, the footsteps of men leaking into the low grumbling of an engine.

The spiky blue and red repeats over and over, an undeviating song with the soft drum beat of someone talking to me. I try to open my eyes, but they are pinned down by the thickening air, pressing on my body, fixing me in place.

My eyes twitch as I try again and again to open them, my eyelashes fluttering in the sweet smelling wind. The breeze bring in new air, clearing the oppressive weight. Finally wrenching my eyes open, I see the black curve of the steering wheel. I’d been driving. The lights of an ambulance set a glow over the car, over me. First like an angel in the marine illumination of the clouds, and then a damned soul in the fires of hell. There is a splash of blood on the steering wheel, its metallic smell hanging in the air. The man crouched next to me tells me to stay still.

Each eyelid feels like a tonne weight as my eyes slip closed again. The spiky blue and red siren is softer now, dulled. The crumpled voices pass through it more easily, the flames of lies licking at the corners. Why will nobody tell me what’s happening? A girl’s voice brings memories like oxygen, my blood pumping faster to get them to my brain.

I remember how I got here. Driving home from the party, I had Hailey and the guys in the car, amusing me with their drunken singing. I’d been named designated driver, the sober one for the evening. So why does my head feel like the world’s worst hangover? I’d turned the corner to see blinding lights speeding towards us. I’d swerved to avoid hitting them. Yes, I remember that. I’d turned the wheel and driven down the grass verge. An almighty lurch; and now this.

Through the shattered windscreen I can see the bonnet and engine curled protectively around the trunk of a tree. The guys are sitting in the open back doors of an ambulance, a policeman between them with his back to me. They throw fugitive looks my way before their heads fall back down, their mouths moving as little as possible. The policeman turns to look at me, his face sallow and sad before he turns back, patting the guys comfortingly on their shoulders before retreating to his partner who was talking to a paramedic.

The man at my side is saying they have to cut me out, that they’re waiting for the fire brigade. Why can’t they just pull me out? My breath is heavy and laboured. Each breath hurts in my chest. I just about manage to breathe out the word Hailey, at which the man tells me that my friends are fine. They’ve been looked over by a paramedic and will be just fine, but he needs me to keep still. Am I not going to be fine?

I close my eyes again, my body tired. My chest groans in angry red, sharp colours that smell bitter, slicing through the thick heavy air. The deep purple feeling in my legs is numbing like antiseptic and mints. My skin feels unfamiliar and uncomfortable as white silk soft fingers press to my wrist. Orange tears ring through the night as the paramedic yells to someone else.

The blue and red flashes are fading into the black to the colours of blood and the midnight sky. Though I can feel the paramedic moving next to me, he sounds further away, a mumble of conversation walking away through a crowded room.

In a blinding flash of burning white light, the world is pulled through me and away again, my dark cocoon returning, where I am allowed to rest for a moment. The hot white lightning returns once again with the bitter tang of lemons, shooting through my body and disappearing like rain dripping from my fingers and toes.

I can hear a dial tone, a high vibrating note that travels on and on. My head doesn’t hurt anymore. My body feels weightless and free. No more lightning, no more lights.

In the distance, someone is crying.