The baby seat is empty, and I have this awful sinking feeling ...
- Adrian Vladimir
- Sep 3, 2024
- 6 min read
Plot lines blossom in the nebula of my head. I drift into a fictional world because I always drive this way. The highway signs and vehicles of morning rush hour pass in a haze of inattention. The radio plays classical, an appropriate soundtrack for combating potential road rage or the humdrum of another day at the office.
Sometimes it even works.
A black SUV right in front of me drifts toward the grassy median separating the north and southbound lanes, and suddenly, I’m yanked out of my reverie by a tightness in my guts. The SUV’s tires cross the white line. I tap the brakes.
I figure the driver will correct the vehicle, but no, the SUV keeps going right over the rumble strip until the tires on the driver’s side are on the grass and the tires on the passenger side are on the pavement.
Don't jerk the wheel!
The thought is electric because I know what will happen. Chances are your vehicle will spin out or roll over since your tires will be riding on two very different materials, and the sudden torque will carry you to a nasty ending.
The driver doesn’t perceive my telepathic warning, jerking the wheel hard in a panic to get back on the highway.
The tires in the grass dig in, and the tires on the pavement don’t. The vehicle rocks violently back and forth before spinning out. Then its tires catch on the pavement, and the SUV somersaults over the fast lane before rolling down the highway, spitting pieces of itself in all directions like broken teeth. Glass and plastic shimmer in the air, and the crash carries to my ears as a series of high-pitched shatters and deep thuds.
The SUV lands on its side, sliding down the highway and shooting sparks, then grinds to a stop. Its undercarriage is like a private bedroom photo that strangers like me were never meant to see. Traffic seizes to a jarring halt.
Beethoven segues into Chopin.
Whoa! Did I just see that? I wonder. It was like a scene out of a movie. Then I think: Someone might be hurt. Get out of the car, dummy!
No one moves. I look around to see other drivers staring, as shocked as I am. I jump out of my car at precisely the same time as the driver next to me—a professional forty-something in a suit—and we’re the catalysts.
Our movement breaks peoples’ surprise, and suddenly, drivers are getting out of their cars one by one or calling for help on their cell phones because something has to be done.
The suit and I exchange a glance, and in that moment, we’re bonded by desperation. We run along the white line toward the SUV, bits of glass and plastic crunching under our shoes. Traffic in the northbound lane slows to a crawl as curious commuters peer over the median.
The SUV looks like someone took a hammer to an aluminum can. Dark antifreeze oozes from beneath the wreckage like blood.
The suit and I slow as we reach the SUV, and I don’t know about him, but I sure as hell don’t know what I’m about to see. I don’t even know if I want to look. I sniff the air.
“I don’t smell gasoline,” I say, nodding toward the gas tank, which seems to be intact. My companion shrugs.
Together, our shoulders almost touching, we creep around the back of the vehicle. The rear windshield is a spider web of cracks, and I can’t see through the tinted glass.
I reach the shattered window of the rear driver’s side door next and stand on my toes to look inside because the SUV is up on its side. The baby seat is empty, and I have this awful sinking feeling, and suddenly, my heart is pounding, just hammering against my ribs.
The infant’s clothes are strewn all over the inside. Sippy cups and a teddy bear. The kid has been ejected from the seat, and I think: This is going to be really, really bad.
Numbly, I take another step to the driver’s window, lean forward, and peer over the lip of the door. A woman is suspended on her side, strapped in by her seatbelt, hanging in the air.
“Hey, are you okay?”
It’s a stupid thing to say—of course, she’s not okay—but I hear myself asking it anyway.
She flinches at the sound of my voice, and the moment she sees me, the exact second, this look of absolute panic contorts her face, and she starts writhing against her seatbelt, mewling out these wild, high-pitched notes of animal fear. The seatbelt won’t budge because there’s pressure pushing against it.
She scares the shit out of me.
“The baby seat,” the guy in the suit whispers. He’s right at my side, my accidental companion, and I’ve had the same thought.
“Hey, lady. Is there anyone else in the car?” I ask.
She stops freaking out, looks at me for a long moment, in which time oozes by with honey slowness, and then shakes her head. I feel this immense relief, and it’s only then I realize I’ve been holding my breath.
She doesn’t say anything, though, and doesn’t ask for help or tell me her name; she starts struggling against the seatbelt again.
Other drivers trickle over. A hurried discussion begins. Should we get her out? How? Does anyone have any medical experience?
A random sliver of knowledge bobs to the surface of my mind.
“Don’t move her. She might have spinal injuries. Help will be here soon,” I say.
An EMT buddy of mine, no stranger to car accidents, once told me that untrained people shouldn’t mess with the victims of motor vehicle accidents unless blood is gushing or gasoline is leaking. It's too risky.
My voice goes ignored.
Some bearded guy in a t-shirt tries to force open the doors, which is laughable because they’re crumpled shut, so he starts kicking in the windshield.
“Stop it, man. Let the professionals help her,” I say.
“We have to get her out!” the guy says. He’s freaking out, too.
“She might have spinal injuries. Don’t move her.”
The guy just doesn’t get it, or maybe I’m too shocked to explain myself in a way that will get through to him, but either way, he keeps trying to get her out.
I make a judgment call. The vehicle's inside is miraculously intact, and she doesn’t appear to have any broken bones. She’s fighting frantically against the seatbelt, so she’s full of piss and vinegar.
There’s no baby, and there’s no blood, and I sure as hell don’t want her to panic any more than she already is. I relent, and several people drag her out through the window. She flops clumsily to the pavement, clinging to a stranger until she can stand on rubbery legs.
Sirens wail in the distance, and the rosy lights of emergency vehicles glide toward us. Cop cars and two ambulances arrive half a minute later, filled with people who actually know what they’re doing.
I go back to my car, get in, and drive around the accident. The highway ahead is clear and bright, and the sun warms my face.
Mozart brushes Chopin aside.
This is a true story about a woman’s commute that went horribly wrong. I’m glad she was okay. And I’m so happy there was no baby in the car, that’s for damn sure.
The accident came to mind because there’s a car chase in Fly the Heartstream, and what better way to make it real than to recall the moments I’ve experienced something out of the ordinary.
Sometimes fiction is fact, just thinly veiled.
Thinking back, I’ve had many near misses while driving, especially when I was younger and crazier (stupider).
That time my friend Rob rolled my mother’s brand-new Pontiac Sunbird over and over on what all the locals called The Dump Road.
That time I hit a patch of ice and did this slow-motion slide into a telephone pole from a hundred and fifty feet away. No matter how hard I turned the wheel, my old Buick kept going.
BAM!
That was the end of that car.
Or when my buddy was driving us home late one night, and for some reason, I felt a rush of panic and told him to STOP just as another car came bombing out of a side street with its headlights off. I didn’t see the vehicle. Couldn’t have. That was a weird one. Divine intervention, I guess.
Or maybe the energetic threads holding the universe together vibrated just enough for me to perceive them at just the right time.
Kind of like Prism, the young heroine in Fly the Heartstream.
Soon, you’ll get to meet her.
I hope the two of you hit it off.
Until next time … happy reading!
-Adrian Vladimir
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