the day i nearly died.

It was a Monday.

I hated Mondays.

I never practiced during the weekends and thus was always ill-prepared on Mondays.

Oh, how I hated her look of disdain. The same one I was met with every week when I struggled through a piece. My fingers would tremble slowly, pushing one key at a time as my brain pushed to process the music as fast as it could. I did not look forward to Mondays.

"Head out to the car first, I just have to go grab something!" my mother yelled from the basement.

I opened the door and was welcomed with the sharp, rumbling sound of thunder. I almost jumped back. The rain was coming down hard and the rolling clouds made the night sky much darker than usual.

The thought of going to piano lessons in itself made me sick to my stomach. This weather wasn't helping.

"Mom."

She didn't reply.

"MOM, IT'S RAINING!"

She emerges from the doorway.

"Yeah. So? Grab an umbrella. Let's go."

We get in the car and start driving. I turn on the radio and switch through stations looking for Backstreet. I've got it almost on full blast to overcome the sound of the raindrops smashing the windshield.

Come on, where are you Backstreet? 

Instead, I am welcomed by the sound of my mother.

She's agitated. "Will you turn that down?"

I roll my eyes at her. "Why?" I retort.

"I'm trying to drive." she replies.

She has the window wipers on max and watching them move back and forth is making me slightly nauseous.

"That doesn't make any sense Mom. How does listening help you drive better?"

She doesn't bother with a reply and simply turns off the radio herself.

Fine, whatever.


I turn my body to the passenger window and face the darkness.

"You know if you keep driving this slow we're never going to make it on time." I mutter.

Again, silence.

I look over at her and she's hunched over the wheel, her finger nails digging into the leather fabric.

We slow down as we approach the end of Kennedy and make a right.

We're almost at the Turn.

The Turn was my favourite. A big, fat, wide, right turn that wrapped around the side of the cliffside. When the centripetal force would command us to slide, I always loved to push my siblings hard into the walls of the backseats.

The speed limit was something like 60 there, but no one ever went 60 around the Turn. The street leading up to it was 80 and we lived in the countryside where cops apparently don't exist. Besides, there was this massive Hill right before it and we'd always pick up speed.

I look up from the side window and realize we're going up the Hill already. Too bad my siblings weren't here. The Turn's no fun when you're by yourself.

We reach its peak and start heading downward. The rain's coming down even harder than before.

I begin conversation again, but am cut off by myself as I am thrown towards the window.

My body shifts weight, first to the left, then to the right, then to the left again. My stomach drops.

We're fish-tailing.

I look up.

I'm blinded by the lights of the oncoming car and I realize we're in the wrong lane.

**HONK HONK**

Every part of my body wants to scream, but my lungs won't let me. My mind is blank and my body's frozen. My eyes, glued.

**HONK HONK**

My mom swerves to the right, just in time to dodge the oncoming car but jerks again to the left when she realizes we're going to hit the barrier.

**HONK HONK**

A small swivel to the right, a small swivel to the left. That feeling of weightlessness lifts a little as she begins to regain control.

But it doesn't last for long.

The wheels lose grip of the road again and my car starts spinning.

My body tenses up and my lungs begin to panic as I can't breathe.

The world starts spinning around me.

Light, dark, light, dark, light, dark.

The darkness of the night forests are broken by the intermittent lights from oncoming cars.

It feels like we spin forever, yet my mind is still blank.

What do we do? WHAT DO WE DO!?

**SMASH**

My entire body is thrown toward the window as it shatters, but I am pulled back by my seatbelt. I hear honking in the background and my right arm starts getting wet from the incoming raindrops but I can't move.

Is it over?

My brain can barely function, but as it finally registers that the car has reached a stand-still, my body begins to relax and take comfort in rested stability. I sit there panting, looking down at my feet.

For a few seconds, my mother and I sit there getting drenched by the rain.

She breaks the silence.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah Mom, are you?"

Both of us are perfectly fine.

Some man runs toward my mom's window to make sure we're alright.

I look up and realize we hit a massive van stopped at the intersection right before the 30 ft ditch.

"I saw you come down from the top of the Hill! You're lucky you hit me!" he yells. "I'm pretty sure you'd be dead otherwise!"

Oh my gosh, he's right. We would've kept rolling down the ditch.

---------------

By no means am I a religious individual, but if there is such thing as God/Buddha/fate/whatever, thank you. Thank you for saving my life.

P.s. I was 9 when this happened. And the guy we hit, ended up being an old friend of my Dad who he hasn't seen since childhood in Hong Kong.