Woman in a rented Red Jeep Cherokee
Somewhere in Southern Washington there is a fine dusting of myself scattered all along the highway. I was blown into a thousand bits of light in the flash of an instant. It is amazing how quickly a life can blow apart.
Traveling down Hwy 97 winding in and out of rolling sagebrush hills in a rented Red Jeep Cherokee. The warm spicey scent of sage, earth and desert floating in through the vents. The sun casting its golden long light that signals the shift from day to night. I had no clue, no warning as to my impending release.
Sagebrush covered hillside, Hwy 97
I exploded, I burst into a thousand flecks of light. My own personal Big Bang. All my cells liberated from matter, sailing off in all directions. Heavier particles landing in the nearby sagebrush, others left there on the highway probably being run over by semi-trucks hauling through the long night. The finer particles, perhaps the best of me, still airborne caught on the warm scented breeze. Where are those pieces? Still floating, dispersing further and further from the point of impact, the point of liberation.
And yet, I am still here, telling you this tale. But it happened. I felt both the explosion into light AND the intense focus as my Red Jeep Cherokee heaved her ass-end around a semi-truck with barely five car lengths to spare.
What would the police report say? “Red Jeep Cherokee crossed the centerline into oncoming traffic, didn’t veer from her course. Exploded into a thousand multicolored sparks of light. Witness’s state it was a sight to behold. One woman described it like Independence Day and another like the first time she took acid.”
What do I recall?
Red Jeep Cherokee traveling 50 mph, reducing speed. Stuck behind a southbound semi-truck going downhill on Hwy 97, thirty miles north of Goldendale, Washington. Broken yellow line signals it is safe to pass.
Uphill traffic has two lanes. Long stretch of highway with no traffic. An uphill northbound climbing semi-truck and a northbound White Car With Lights On at the bottom of the hill.
Red Jeep Cherokee crosses over broken yellow line to pass slower moving southbound semi-truck. Lots of highway to spare.
Red Jeep Cherokee shoulder to shoulder with southbound semi-truck.
White Car With Lights On eating up the open highway.
Red Jeep Cherokee shoulder to shoulder with southbound semi-truck.
White Car With Lights On closing the distance.
Red Jeep Cherokee shoulder to shoulder with southbound semi-truck.
Shoulder to shoulder.
Confusion. Time slows, time alters.
Red Jeep Cherokee notices all the fine details of the moment; the light on the tips of the sagebrush, the rolling landscape, the other drivers, wondering what is going through their minds, thankful that no one is laying on horns and adding to the tension of the moment, deep confusion as to why the Red Jeep Cherokee is unable to get around the southbound semi-truck.
The curiosity that the brain can take in so much in a flash of a moment. The complex thoughts that race and circle the brain. The realization that this may be how a life ends, in a split second of bad decision. Confusion - there was so much time and distance. Regret, children, life yet to be lived, more confusion.
Firm decision to commit. Pedal all the way on the floor.
Pedal all the way to the floor.
Red Jeep Cherokee still shoulder to shoulder with southbound semi-truck.
White Car With Lights On devouring the distance.
White Car With Lights On destroying the distance.
White Car With Lights On feeling confusion.
Red Jeep Cherokee not passing southbound semi-truck.
Red Jeep Cherokee engine revving, whining hard, engine screaming.
Red Jeep Cherokee knows impact won’t hurt at this speed, it will be over in a nano second.
Red Jeep Cherokee wonders if this is how it was for Ben and Tammy in a head-on going Northbound on the same highway 30 years ago.
White Car With Lights On
White Car With Lights On
White Car With Lights On
Red Jeep Cherokee quick glance to the right, ass-end parallel to front of southbound semi-truck.
Red Jeep Cherokee pulls hard over into the right hand lane. Hauling, dragging, heaving her ass inches in front of the southbound semi-truck.
Red Jeep Cherokee five car lengths before exploding particles.
Red Jeep Cherokee five car lengths before the Big Bang.
Red Jeep Cherokee five car lengths before motherless children.
Red Jeep Cherokee
Five car lengths
Red Jeep Cherokee – get it to-fucking-gether.
Red Jeep Cherokee
Red Jeep Cherokee
Red Jeep Cherokee
Gulping sobs
Five fucking car lengths.
Red Jeep Cherokee
Red Jeep Cherokee
Red Jeep Cherokee
Goldendale, Washington
Epilogue:
Lying in bed seven days post Big Bang, wondering how to gather all my particles back.
Scattered, not whole, maybe I am put back together differently?
Wondering about parallel Universes.
Am I light and floating particles there?
Are there motherless children there?
Is there screaming of sirens? Chaotic noise so loud it becomes quiet and muffled by the dying?
Are there red and white torn, ripped, mangled metal pieces strewn along a highway winding through sagebrush?
Is there an insurance company paying out hundreds of thousands to shocked and bereaved family?
Are there prayers of forgiveness from an exploding ball of light?
Are there prayers of forgiveness from a woman in a Red Jeep Cherokee on her long way home?
Are there prayers?
Are they enough?
Prayers?
Red Jeep Cherokee’s Note:
Automatic drive engine slipped accidently into “low”. Whining, screaming engine was doing all it could to over-take southbound semi-truck.
Wondering if there was some help hauling, dragging, guiding my ass-end around - thirty miles outside of Goldendale, Washington on a beautiful Spring evening.
Further down Hwy 97 coming into Mt Shasta