This post was written for Write on Edge’s writing meme, RemembeRED. This week’s prompt: Take the next ten minutes to write about the first single memory that the word CRASH calls up.
Before you read it you should know that I misread the instructions. I thought it was an exercise in flash fiction, not flash memoir. This is FICTION!
Metal on metal. Loud and angry, it sounds like a lion roaring.
She reached for her head. Her eyeglasses were gone and as she looked down at her hand and it was wet. She ran her fingers over her palm and wondered if it was blood.
Blinding lights filled the car and a siren wailed in the distance.
She could figure out what her son was doing in the front seat when his car seat was positioned directly behind her. His gaze was empty and his body contorted.
The road was slick and visibility was difficult. She knew better. She should have never gone out in this weather. She should have left her two-year-old safe and warm at home with his grandmother.
Through her haze and swelling head she suddenly remembered, she missed the corner.
The windshield wipers moved back and forth deliberately pushing water away.
She had made the biggest mistake of her life that night; in her haste to grab an umbrella, she forgot to buckle in her sweet baby boy.
Everything she knew changed in a single instant, but the memory of it will last forever.
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Great writing and very chilling. These kind of decisions are always fascinating. How a life can change by deciding to stay in or go out or put a seat belt on or not. Or is it all fate?
Either way very dark and intense piece Tonya. Blame it on the rain and the umbrella.
Thanks. And so far, no one has kicked me out of Write On Edge. 🙂
You nailed it my friend, you nailed it.
I didn’t know if I could go there. Fiction can be fun.
Fantastic, Tonya! (thank goodness it’s fiction)
Me too!
Brilliantly described but very dark ending, had me the chills! 🙂
This was terrifying. So glad it’s not memoir. I’ve forgotten to buckle a car seat before and my baby did fall out of it. Thank goodness she wasn’t hurt.
Great job.
Wow Tonya chilling, such excellent writing.
Whoa, that is intense! Great writing Tonya. I want to know what happens to her!