Natalie Alper
So, I hit someone with my car.
In my defense, I was driving back late and had gotten off of my closing shift at the mall just as it
hit midnight. The sky was long black by the time I locked the final door and headed across the
empty parking lot to my car. The air was heavy with the leftover mist of a rare June storm that
had left the pavement littered with dirty puddles. I kept on my toes as I traversed, strategic in my
placement to not end up with my cloth shoes soaked and freezing. I took out my keys with
shivering hands and scraped around the handle, determined to find the lock without having to
open the flashlight on my phone. Finally, a welcome click allowed me into the frigid car. The
unusually cold weather had been giving the engine problems and with bated breath, I listened to
it turn over once, twice, three times before being granted that familiar rumble. A combination of
my hot breath and the humid air left the windows foggy and I sat blind to the outer world while
fumbling at the knobs on the dashboard. I turned the air to defrost and patiently waited for my
warm salvation, hands pressed to the front of the vents still disappointingly dispersing cold air.
When I was satisfied with the visibility through the windshield, I buckled my seat and shifted the
car into reverse. I know the streets home well, most of the time driving back on autopilot as I let
my mind wander wherever it liked. Returning at this time had its perks and I loved to see the
streets eerily deserted. There’s a kind of peace that only exists on a desolate road after dark. I
followed the familiar route out of the parking lot, generously illuminated by flickering lamps, and
turned right out onto the main road. Clicking on the radio, the sounds of a monotonous pop song
that had consumed the airwaves for weeks filled the silence of the car. I was no fan of the song,
but the producers had done their job well, and found myself singing along to the lyrics that had
weaseled their way into my memory. The derivative beat thumped in the car and my fingers
tapped along on the steering wheel as I flew down the street, only to stop abruptly for a sudden
red light. I waited impatiently then floored the gas as it hit green, landing myself at another red
light. With the image of the leftovers waiting for me at home taunting my mind, the signal took its
sweet time turning green. I heroically ignored the creeping voice in the back of my head that
urged me to just run the light. After all, it whispered convincingly, there was no one else out on
the street so it was perfectly safe. I held strong and when the wet pavement ahead finally lit up
into that tell-tale color, I hit the gas.
The moment my foot slammed on the pedal, movement in the corner of my eye alerted me all
too late to a shadowed figure. The hood of my car cruised first into the crosswalk and next into
the unmistakable weight of a human body. My reflexes forced me to slam on the brake, but I
knew it was too late. The impact threw the figure back, launching them into the middle of the
street where they landed in a broken heap. Somehow, my airbags hadn’t gone off and so I sat
panting and horrified with a perfect view of the destruction I had caused. The terrible awareness
sunk in. I steadied myself to do the right thing. Cracking the door, I slid out from under the
steering wheel enough to peek my head out.
“Hey!” I called, “Are you okay?”
The crumpled figure gave no response. Cursing to myself, I thrust open the door and clambered
out on shaky legs. The music still blasted from my speaker; dirty lyrics cutting through the eerie
night. The person lay a few feet from the bumper of my car, which appeared miraculously
untouched. They were face down on the cement, with one arm pinned underneath an ample
torso and the other resting above the head as if they had been signaling for a taxi. The legs
were twisted to the side unnaturally and only the left foot wore a shoe. With every ounce of my
body not wanting to, I knelt by the figure and gently shook them.
“Hello?” Still no movement. Panic began to truly swell as my chest seized and I accepted the
horrifying reality that I had killed someone. Desperate to find some sign of life, I grabbed the
shoulders and flipped the body. The other side revealed a plain-looking young man who I would
have guessed to be around twenty-five. His angular nose contrasted with a pudgy jaw, yet
without the lifeless expression, he could have been considered handsome. However, it would be
hard for someone to recognize him now; the face had been left a smorgasbord of brutal injuries.
Scrapes marred almost every exposed surface of the skin and a massive gash carved a jagged
hole through his forehead. The bottom lip was missing, only to be found moments later tucked
into the crack between my hood and headlight. The discovery would leave me dry heaving near
the sidewalk.
I realized only after a few minutes of abject horror, that despite the scene of destruction, there
was no blood. Anywhere. Not in the fresh wounds, not in the raw pink skin visible layers deeper
than it should, and not in the exposed muscles and sinews of the broken form. None was pooled
on the ground nor streamed from any part of his body. As I gently picked up the mangled head
in my hands, I noticed that the mass was cold and stiff as if dead for several hours. I let the
weight slip from my fingers in confusion and the head hit the ground with a sickening crack. The
man didn’t move. I stepped back slowly, and then scrambled towards the car driven by an
emotion I’d never experienced before. A primal instinct from before my time that grabbed hold of
the reigns of my body and told me unequivocally to run. Thankful I’d left the car running, I
leaped into the seat and quickly maneuvered around the still-lifeless figure.
When I pulled into my driveway minutes later, I couldn’t force my body to get out. I sat in the
driver’s seat, trembling. I’d never before experienced the feeling of not being able to believe my
own eyes, and frankly, I was not enjoying it. How was I supposed to just get out of the car like
normal, sling my backpack over my shoulder and unlock the front door with my keys attached to
the anime girl keychain a friend had bought me as a joke? How was I supposed to flip on the
lights and amble to the kitchen to heat some of the unfortunate slop I had made for last night’s
dinner because I’d never really learned how to cook and now I was too embarrassed to try?
How was I supposed to sit at my messy one-chair table and play games on my phone while
eating like I wasn’t a fundamentally different person from who I was when I left just eight hours
ago? Would I look different in the mirror? Would I even be able to recognize myself?
These all turned out to be stupid questions in the end. After I finally gathered the courage to
perform all of those previously mundane tasks, I realized that they were just as simple as they
had always been and, of course, I still looked the same. I’d never thought about how easy it is to
change so profoundly on the inside but have no one ever know. So, I went to bed and life went
on.
In the days and weeks that followed, I scoured the internet for some mention of a hit-and-run.
On any given day there would be at least one fatal accident reported in the city, yet on that
particular night, all was silent for the media. Half of me was relieved and the other half had a
sinking feeling that no news could be the worse of two options. Either it had actually happened
or it hadn’t but neither could have positive consequences. I revoked my own license but had no
reason to give the clerk at the DMV other than I no longer considered myself fit to operate a
vehicle. She smiled warmly and said that she wished other people were as self-aware as I was.
I got used to taking the bus to work and found a new comfort in being able to read or scroll on
my phone during the journey. I chose my routes carefully and for several years managed to map
out my daily adventures so as to never pass through that intersection again.
However, as I have learned several times over in my life, the universe rarely considers our plans
and so a few months ago I arrived at my bus stop to find a small sign informing passengers that
due to a road closure, the bus would be taking a different route. It would now cross through that
particular intersection. I checked my work schedule just to be sure that I really had to go on that
day, but upon finding only confirmation of my hours resigned myself to facing the past. My
nerves were bouncing as I climbed onto the bus and chose my seat. We trundled along the
familiar streets as I tried in vain to control my breathing. All too soon for my liking, we turned
onto the road that had haunted my dreams since that night. Now there, I was determined to face
it head-on and prove that regardless of what had happened, it no longer had me in a chokehold.
We pulled up to the intersection, and just like that night, we hit a red and stopped. I kept my
eyes trained on the crosswalk as a couple skipped along, oblivious to my gaze. Just as I had
always told myself but never believed, all was well on the street. It was just a road like any
other, blissfully unaffected by the single most impactful moment of my life. I was desperately
relieved as the light turned green and our little community of bus riders gently jolted forward.
Suddenly, the scene transformed.
With horror, I gazed at the unrecognizable road, now filled with blood streaming from a pool just
where the man’s body had once laid. Cars sped through the viscous liquid, coating their tires
and painting the street as they drove. The whole intersection was a crisscross of red tire prints. I
gaped as my bus trundled the same path, squelching the puddle beneath it and splattering
droplets of blood onto the window in front of me. No one else seemed to notice.
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