Fear's Hand Wasn't Meant to Hold

It was an especially cold winter, or maybe it’s the memory of that day that makes it seem that way. Snow had fallen that night, coating everything. Children were playing and the only music a person could find on the radio was some still-redundant variation of a Christmas carol. I talked to my son, Henry, in the back seat. He was only six months old but was much more enjoyable to be around than a lot of adults these days. I would peek at him in the rearview mirror and smile, saying his name. He would giggle and wave his fists when appropriate, or listen attentively when the verbally one-sided conversation called for it.

We were on our way home. I think it was a week before Christmas. His mother had to work late for some ungodly reason and I had been sent to retrieve him from his twice-a-week early-childhood daycare. I didn’t mind; it was about time the two of us had a chance for some male bonding, and the forty-five minute drive home provided a nice opportunity.

I was never a fan of the music this season dragged along with it. I could never quite comprehend why so many people felt it was necessary to set it to their life’s temporary background music the moment Thanksgiving passed. If it weren’t for the extreme and uncalled for excess in which it was played perhaps I’d enjoy it more, I said to Henry.

He wiggled in agreement.

We had reached the freeway and were running a bit behind schedule. We were supposed to be at my in-laws’ house for supper in twenty minutes…

I leaned a little on the gas.

Ugh, I needed a shower before we went.

I leaned a little more.

I lifted my head a little and saw Henry strapped into his carriage-turned-car-seat in the back seat. He was peering out the window and had three fingers in his mouth. He chewed on them intently.

I leaned unconsciously now, absorbed in my son, who was, in turn, absorbed in the world rushing by.

A blur of white, and that was all. It was the same everywhere- white, white and more white; if only there could be a little color here and there, wouldn’t that make it more interesting? I asked Henry this. He didn’t respond.

My eyes returned to the road and I jerked the brake when I realized guiltily that I had carelessly let the car accelerate to almost ninety miles per hour in weather as hazardous as this.

You know what the ironic part is? I could have kept going ninety and probably made it home with time to spare. But instead I hastily tapped the brake, and something didn’t feel quite right…

It was so smooth, and so beautiful. The plainness of it all was not detracting from it’s appearance at all, I now saw; in fact, I realized at that moment, as Henry must have before, that that was where the charm of this season lay.

It was charm as well as this possessing emotion that had now gripped me in an ironclad, crushing fist that seemed to be two common things associated with this season. The first, beauty, I had never understood. The second, which was happening now, I didn’t believe would ever happen to me.

The car was moving horizontally. swinging, swinging… we fishtailed here and there on the deserted freeway.

There was blood and death everywhere, crawling over me holding my head tight. There was fire and burning and rolling and crashing, but all within this small part of my head. We were still swinging gracefully, but the interior, emotional part of my head was in ruins.

I was sweating and shivering and jerking the wheel and there was nothing I could do, but Henry! Henry! Hundreds of people were inside my head now, screaming pleading, wreaking havoc on my psyche while I tried desperately to disregard it but I could not, no, there was nothing I could do. Nothing I could do! Henry, oh, Henry! He didn’t cry now but I know I did. He looked out the window and watched it all pass him by.

No, no, no, no! The glass, no! This emotion was glass breaking, metal twisting and rubber sliding on ice; It was crushing and it was slow, increasing by the second alongside my denial because there is no way this could or would ever happen to me. My heart weighed twenty pounds and my stomach had left my body long ago. My head was detached from my body, living entirely within itself, floating above us, floating..

I still steered desperately until finally the feeling justified itself and turned into actual, physical happening. We were rolling, my mind was rolling, there was broken glass and in my mind there was broken glass. Metal was crumpling, and my mind was crumpling. Screams coming from the horror in my emotions and the horror that triggered my physical reactions.

Henry, Henry.

It gripped me, it consumed me until, finally, mercifully, there was nothing left but a dark, crushing hand and a whisper, barely escaping my lips.

Henry…