A matter of minutes

This is for Blogging for Books:

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Life has so many options, so many decisions. To go or wait? The path veers, choose left or right? Do I tell him the things that have been left unsaid? Share those private monologues in my head, or edit and filter them for content before letting them escape? Maybe keep them locked safely where they belong.

Hundreds of choices we make through each and every day. Sometimes it takes only a split second; sometimes it's with a heavily weighed and long deliberation. But once it's decided and acted upon, there is no turning back. Only the push forward, and the ramifications of things we can never undo.

A matter of minutes. My life changed utterly and irrevocably over a few simple minutes. Minutes that on any given day, slid by with little consequence.

I was impatiently staring at the white ceiling as she continued to adjust her make-up. He was waiting in a bar not far away. I knew the longer he waited, the more agitated he would become. I kept prodding her, reminding her we should have been there by now.

"What's a few minutes? He can wait."

She continued adjusting and primping, a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. I looked up at the ceiling.

We arrived and I couldn't see him among his group of friends at their regular table. I apparently had only missed him by a few minutes. I knew what he'd be like. Furious, disappointed which usually translated to a coldness punctuated by long uncomfortable silences. I could probably still catch up with him, but it was best to let him just be. I would talk with him tomorrow, filled with the requisite apology that always made things better.

The 4th was bright and sunny, an ideal day in July. I hiked around the mountain lake with the dogs early in the morning, enjoying the shade the trees provided. The sweat poured and I smiled, happy just being. Hours passed by. We were forced home as the heat rose. I was exhausted but relaxed. In my head I had worked out the conversation, some of the things that needed to be said.

The phone rang. I had the screen door open, letting one of the dogs out into the yard. I noticed that the flowering crab apple was swarming with honeybees again. A bead of moisture trickled down my forehead. I picked up the receiver.

"I don't know how to tell you this, but there's been an accident..."

I had always wondered about certain scenes in movies. People who stare in complete shock and need to sit down, or cry hysterically and hug the requisite cast member. Those reactions I could understand. And some fell to the ground, which I was dubious about. The script was obviously a bit over dramatic. In real life, who would actually do that?

My knees buckled and I dropped like a rock, screaming.

I threw up.

I never saw that part in the movies.

The rest of the week was a blur. Burning the dress I wore to the funeral because I could no longer bear the sight of it. Calling his machine, just to hear his voice. Being forced to drive past the accident site, and stopping. They had left the trail of sparkling shards, crushed remains of his CDs, scattered in the ditch. The swath was randomly punctuated by pieces of fiberglass and a twisted windshield wiper. Numbly following the trail of fluorescent orange paint sprayed on the pavement, which circled the tire skid marks and marked the suspected trajectory of the car that had rolled 6 times.

I think about how easily time slips by. The decisions that are naively made, assured that the next step would follow. Unknowingly forfeiting paths that could have altered everything. Yet time pushes forward. And in a split second it can come to a screeching standstill.