Mother Part 1 of 1

Mother Part 1 of 1

I was driving to work as usual around 5:15 a.m. It was a cold morning, but that's no different from any other morning in winter. The frost danced over the road just like it had every day for months now.
I came to an intersection where I had to turn right, but as I braked in the turning lane, I had no traction. I was still going 30, maybe 40 miles per hour when I entered the intersection.
The pickup I ran into looked like a blurry Lego block. I hadn't seen it until the instant before I hit it. For all I knew he was drunk, driving in the wrong lane towards me. That would be an interesting story to hear.
I don't know how the vehicles collided or how they might have turned or twisted because from that moment on my eyes were on one figure: myself. Leaning on a pathetic excuse of an air bag was the bloody mess of what used to be a young woman. I couldn't find the eyes or nose on the face. I couldn't pick out where the mouth should have been, though the fact that she was looking downwards may have affected that. It was like in a gory horror movie, where the victim looks just like me, but it didn't seem like it really was me. The camera panned out above the woman while sirens wailed in the background. Eventually the red and blue lights flashed against the scene, and I felt an empathetic relief for the young woman. It looked like she was so beautiful before the accident, with her short blond hair and red-painted finger nails.
The medical staff loaded her body into the ambulance while I watched with vague interest. I was completely unaware that she was me. I was the one watching this show. It couldn't be me. Later, I deeply regretted that I didn't even pay attention to which direction the ambulance drove off.
The police were amazed at the mess. They might have been appalled, had they not been hardened by all of the scenes that their job shows them.
They used traffic cones and called in many police cars to be strategically placed to force people to not enter the area. Turns out that people drive much more politely when there's a police car with it's lights flashing, whether or not there's anyone inside of it.
The whole place was such a mess. Broken glass and shards of metal everywhere. It was good that no one would be driving on it. Some may have even sued The State for allowing people to drive on such destructive material.
The police set out pieces of paper at seemingly random places before they began taking pictures. The sun had risen after a while, and traffic began increasing. In the distance I could see that they even blocked off adjacent intersections to discourage traffic coming into the intersection. Cars could still turn on the other corners, but the northwestern one was the one blocked off with cones and debris.
As an hour passed, I became increasingly aware of my surroundings, but not as I have usually been aware of surroundings. It was like hearing, seeing, feeling, dreaming, and imagining all in one. The hearing was like hearing everything filtered through your own ear lobe. The sight I found looked like the sight in dreams, how some things are surprisingly vague and even vivid things seem to have a colored tint in it. Here everything was bluer than it should be, like I was seeing everything through a single layer of blue nylon.
The sense of touch was altogether new. I could feel things that weren't even touching my skin. I felt the bitter cold air around me, and the waterproof coats the policemen walked around in as they recorded the scene on camera and notepad. I could feel the dead-cold debris with its sharp edges. I could taste the crunch of debris being stepped on by their black boots. I could feel their breath, their faces that expressed little as they focused on their jobs. I could feel their inner emotions, how it seemed like they were totally indifferent, but inside they felt so much concern that they were about to burst. Somehow I knew that if they expressed even a little of their sympathetic pain, they wouldn't be able to do their jobs and fail to prevent such accidents in the future. I could tell that this was routine for them, as they felt this way about almost every serious case. Well, most of them.
Without moving, I found that I was able to extend my awareness. It was like I was a ball, and all I was doing was increasing the size.
What I found was appalling. I couldn't believe how many motorists were irate because they were delayed a whole 15 minutes on their way to work while the victims of the wreck were probably struggling for life!
That's when it hit me that I was one of the victims struggling for life.... and my spirit was far from my body. I immediately thought of my baby girl, Carol. She's only seven. Much too young to become motherless.
How fucking stupid I'd been! I couldn't believe it! I'd committed my entire life to my baby, and now, when it was so essential to be there for her, I'd pretended my life was a sitcom! I couldn't think of anything else but her, and how I was too afraid of getting lost to leave the intersection. I staid, in case any of the police would mention where I could go. I vaguely remembered the name from some of the medical staff.. Methodist? Mercy? Shit!

The most frustrating thing about being a spirit without a body is being unable to express anything. Being stuck in a soundproof box would be nicer, because at least you knew that there was at least some chance of getting out and being able to talk to people again. As a spirit, you can scream and wail and sob like there's no tomorrow, and no one will hear you. You can try to touch anyone, but they barely acknowledge your presence as you disappear like invisible water vapor. Then, even if you do catch that tiny glimmer in their eye that tells you that they have been effected, they decide to believe it was because of anything but a ghost!
I truly couldn't blame them. I don't believe in ghosts either.

I sat in the middle of the intersection as my sorrow and desperation increased. That ball of touch began to give more emotion than it was receiving. I noticed that the drivers seemed more solemn as they passed, but none of that mattered. I wanted one of them to help me, so I tried to project this with this new sense of mine. All of my desperation and sorrow and urgent need was channeled into that ball of energy. If it had a size, it would have exceeded the intersection by a few yards on all sides. Drivers became more concerned for the accident survivors, but that was not what I needed! Some simply began to feel sullen, but that didn't help me at all. I doubted anyone would acknowledge this "haunch" that they got, but I kept trying all the more.