The entire thing was rather a bit like a dream. The cool spring night air rushed in through partially opened windows as they sped down the road towards the highway. There is no exact recollection of the conversation but most likely it was about the rude boy who had thrown up out the passenger window of the sporty little black car. With him dropped of the two could just go home and get some sleep.

The night seemed especially black making the woman on the roadside seem decidedly like an apparition as she waved her arms back and forth. Then there was the car flipped and crushed, flames licking silently near the radiator.

The passenger had begun to scream to pull over but the driver has already pulled onto the gravely shoulder. Within a moment they are both tearing across the rock and litter strewn grass. Two women are crying loudly men are shouting back and forth for help. The scene has engulfed the young couple.

It is as if there is only this bubble of reality. A hundred feet of highway, the flaming car, the directrionless shouts and cries. Everything else is black, fate with tunnel vision. The young couple help two men lift up the passenger side of the car. The man is aware that a body is being pulled from the wreckage but makes no note of it. Someone is screaming now, but he does not hear it to him there is the aspect of the fire. He pulls off his heavy motorcycle styled jacket and begins to beat at the flames, hoping to control them, he has already realized he can not put them out.

In his mind there is nothing but the thought, where are the police, where is the fire department.

The woman hears a man shouting "My brother is still in the car! My brothers in the car!" She screams at him to shut up and help lift. Her boyfriend is beating the flames with his jacket, as she and another man begin lifting. The car lifts part way and falls back hitting both of them across the hips leaving large and painful bruises. They lift again, the man has stopped screaming about his brother and moves to help, her boyfriend is now next to her.

The man feels the car lurch up then fall he looks over and is vaguely aware of the prone bloody body some feet away. He yells out to someone, anyone, maybe one of the crying girls. He tells them cover the man with the couple's jackets. He throws his jacket next to her and goes to help lift.

The car lifts and flips over in a quick and quiet motion. The man never thought an automobile would be so easy to overturn. The woman notes the car is empty, loudly yelling over some noise that must be, but that he can not hear. Simultaneously they wonder aloud if there jackets are under the car. They are not.

She finds herself over by a large wall, the side of an off-ramp, talking to a man whose face and hair are cover in sticky wet blood. He has lapsed into a deep shock, had he been the driver or the passenger, was he the brother. She tells him everything will be all right then goes to check on the other man.

Someone has arrived on the scene with a mechanically complicated looking fire extinguisher. The man holding it has pulled the safety pin, but neither can figure out the trigger in the fluttering light. A flicker of orange reveals the word push. The air fills with the spray of a dry tasting, white chemical agent. The man carries the canister while pointing and yelling over some din where to point the nozzle. In seconds the fire is extinguished.

The man with the fire extinguisher shouts for people to return to a bus and they are gone. In the mans ears there is still some din. Rushing of blood crying screaming wailing, he has no idea what it is or where it comes from. He walks towards his girlfriend who is cradling the head of the jacket covered bloody form in her lap. "Talk to him, keep talking to him" he says to her, then walks off in the direction of his car, why? Have the police arrived, he can not remember.

The girl sees her boyfriend stop over here proffering some advice before walking off. She asks one of the witness's the bloody mans name. She calls him by name "You'll be all right. Everything will be all right." Her boyfriend said as much at some point, but with the young mans blood seeping into her elbow length gloves, his heavily lacerated face staring at her, she is not so sure. A slurred whisper from a bloody mouth says thank you.

The police and fire department have arrived when the man turns around. Two firemen kneel over the body pushing off his girlfriends' and his jackets. She is talking to a heaving sobbing woman. All he can say is that it will be all right. He can not comfort this woman like she can. He wanders to the body to retrieve the jacket.

Once there the police dismiss him politely with thanks for their help. He takes the coats and looks at the face. All he remembers is a vaguely bloody face. He turns and walks to his girlfriend. He explains that they may leave and ushers her toward the car assuring her that the man will be all right. When her back is turned he looks back at the bloodied form to affirm that it is still breathing, it is.

The ride is a whir of speech about everything. The walk to the apartment is quiet. Inside he collapses under the weight of the night. A cigarette from her in one had a beer in the other they expel the demons. Next it is to his bed and sleep, the bloody jackets and clothes can wait. He sleeps heavily, she tremulously; either way the sleep is welcomed and immediately engulfing.

experiences: Maske / Kightlinger

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