Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.
Two white lights slowly appear from the distant darkness. I can only just see them as my eyes adjust against light falling from my own headlights to the bush track ahead. Just as I squint to gauge their distance, they do an unbelievable thing. They flip. They flipped? The car flipped!! Fuck! No way. That coffee half a kilometre back must have worn off already, damn it. I must be hallucinating. Seeing things. I had been driving for days after all. But no. As I get closer, layers of uprising dust glow in the light of the car’s upturned headlights. The car is upside down and looks squashed.
Terror drowns me, as I pull up near the wreck in the darkening dust. I’m no medico. No first aid training. Not even a first aid kit. Not that I would know what to do with it anyway. And nobody else around. Not for miles maybe. Possibly days. Just me. Except for anyone in that car – be they dead or alive. It looks so squashed. And quiet. There’s not even phone reception. Never before had I felt so inadequate. So unprepared. Visions flood my head of talking someone through their last breaths, thinking I could save them if only I knew what I was doing. Worse still it could be children. Or babies. The last thing on earth I want to do is approach that car. But it’s the only thing I can do. I brace myself against waves of intense distaste. I freeze. Time stands still.
But there is no turning back on this one. A voice in my head screams, ‘get out there, people in that car need your help’. I click into action. I run to the car. The car is dripping fuel. Would it blow up? Should I approach? I have to, there might be someone stuck in there. Dead or dying. I see no movement, so run to the other side of the car calling out, ‘can you hear me? Is somebody in there? Are you okay?’
There I catch sight of the driver, upside down. His legs seem squashed under the steering wheel. At first I can’t tell if he’s dead or alive. As light from the headlights of my car nearby falls on his face, I gasp in horror. It’s him! My stomach contorts. I want to vomit. For a moment the scenario leaves my mind, flooded by the deeply entrenched hatred and disgust I feel for him. The pain he infringed still bearing heavy on my soul. How could this happen? It could have been anyone. As the realization sinks in, he suddenly surges up. His blood stained face and bloodshot eyes pounce towards me. I jump back terrified. I freeze again. Surely this is not happening. It is. He wriggles but goes nowhere. Realising he is stuck, he looks up to me and reaches out his arm. No words are spoken. We are stuck in this moment. He is stuck under the car and can’t move. Unless I pull him out.