The Crossroads Between Heaven and Hell

I remember the only thing I thought in that moment was how ironic everything was; how this was the exact same spot, the exact same accident, the exact same moon. And if I hadn’t been dying, I think I would have found it funny.

I sat there, not that I had much of a choice. I couldn’t feel my legs, I couldn’t feel my arms, I couldn’t feel my body below me. And so as the police sirens and ambulances wailed and cried just beyond the glass windows, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to think back. Think back to the moment that all this irony began. And suddenly, I was seven years old again.

It had been a terrible night. It was one of those kinds of nights that had a mixture of rain and snow, romance and tears, guilt and death. I had decided to go for a walk. I couldn’t stay in the house; my parents were clawing at each other’s throats once again, and I didn’t want to be there when the flesh ripped. But their words and emotions could still be heard from the street, and so I decided to go away. I had intended to go very far away, and I don’t remember if I had intentions of coming back.

We lived in a very nice part of town; it was small and quiet and the children on the block all played together in the streets after school. It was the kind of town that was close-knit, and everyone knew everyone. And I think in a way, that was a blessing and a curse. People knew me as the girl who never said anything. I didn’t play with the other children on the block, I didn’t even like them. They were too happy for my liking, too joyful, too hopeful, and too innocent. I didn’t like innocence. It only reminded me of what I didn’t have.

I walked, regardless. I said nothing to no one, and kept my eyes low to the ground. I don’t think I paid much attention to where I was going, because before I knew it, I was in a part of town that I didn’t recognize. But I didn’t fear. I didn’t mind getting lost once in a while; it was actually kind of relaxing if it was the right kind of night. But that night hadn’t been the right night.

There was an intersection at the edge of our town known as the crossroads between heaven and hell. It was notorious for the amount of car accidents that occur there on a regular basis, and that night was no exception. People would say the surpluses of accidents were the result of a malfunctioning stop light, or the large dip at the edge that would fill with large amounts of water when it rained. People came up with all kinds of excuses to put the real reason out of their mind.

About ten years before I was born, a little boy was hit at the intersection and he died. He was even younger than I was the night I went there, only five years old. Not many people remember the story of his death, other than the fact that he was hit. And so many people have died at these crossroads, that the stories get drowned under the body count anyway. But that little boy’s story was important, because he was the first to die. And since his, death has haunted this intersection.

No one ever believed me, but I thought the little boy’s spirit cursed the crossroads.

I wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking, and before I had known it, I had managed to place myself in the middle of the cross walk at the crossroads between heaven and hell during a green light. But I hadn’t realized my grave mistake until the shadows on my fingers began to recede and the light from those blaring headlights illuminated every inch of my tender skin.

It’s said that when something tragic happens, it happens all at once; but not this accident, not this moment. The earth stopped it’s rotation below my feet and I stared ahead at what should have been the last image I ever would have seen on earth. The car grew closer with every second that pounded away to the beat of my heart, and I could have moved. I never told anyone that, but I could have. I wasn’t paralyzed with fear, I didn’t lose all sense. I could have moved, but I chose not to. I don’t know why I didn’t, and that’s the thing that scares me the most about that night.

The car swerved violently, leaving me to bask in the shadows once again, and instead redirected its light into the telephone pole just beyond where I stood. The crash stung in my ears, and sometimes I still hear it in my sleep. It was around that time that the earth started to move again. A black cloud of smoke erupted out of the engine, and a very small flame lit up and licked the front end of the car. The air bag inflated inside the car, crushing the driver into his seat. But that driver wasn’t moving; not an inch.

That was the first time I had ever wished a car hit me.

People began to rush over to me, to the child standing in the middle of the road, and they bombarded me with useless questions, like if I was hurt or injured in any way, and the only thing I remember thinking in that moment was why were these people rushing over to me, when a man lay dead in the front seat of his flaming vehicle? I nodded or shook my head to people’s mundane questions, but I spoke to no one, not even the police once they arrived. I just stood and stared, and I watched as they eventually tore the man’s lifeless body from his car and placed him on a cot. And I watched them, and I wanted to run to that man and hug his body, and plead for his spirit’s forgiveness. But it was all too late, and the numbness inside me was spreading, like an infectious disease; an incurable disease that never dies. And it hasn’t since that day.

Out of everything that happened that night, the most depressing thing that I noticed was that no one was crying for that man. No one was showing any sign of emotion for this poor man who just lost his life at the hands of a stupid little girl. There was no one trying to hold their tears in, or screaming at God for taking such a man away so early. No one cared. Did no one love this man? Did he have no reason to live or continue to thrive? Had I done him a favor by ending his life?
No. I refused to think like that. Surely someone somewhere must be grieving. He couldn’t have existed out of vain. I tried to keep my theories alive, but as I saw the people around me going on with their lives as if nothing occurred, it became horridly evident to me that no one did care. I was the only one. And I was that man’s killer.

I opened my eyes back to the present. I wondered how much longer I had. I still couldn’t feel my body under me, and the police and ambulance sirens were just a nuisance. I wished they would drown out, and just leave me to go in peace, just like the man that night had. I threw my eyes back to the child in the road, the child that stood where I had stood twenty-six years ago. She had a mask of my seven-year-old self’s face, a look that said more than any string of words could hope to say. It was a look that knew more than it should have, and its wearer had more feelings and emotions than all the people standing around her put together.

And that’s when I saw the real irony. I began to look at the people standing around the little girl, asking her questions and wondering if she was alright, and she just kept her eyes on me. I surveyed the faces of those around her, and they were all just as I had expected. No tears, no screams, nothing; pure numbness and disinterest. And I should have been sad that no one would shed a tear for me, but I wasn’t really worth the mess anyway. My parents wouldn’t care, they’re both already dead. I didn’t have any real close friends, and there was no one for me to love in my life. No one would be affected by my death, no one would care. I guess it was sad, but I knew the day was coming. Since the day that I killed that man, I knew his spirit followed me, and waited for the day that this continuing vicious cycle of death would spin once again. It’s what I deserved, and I knew that. I could call it karma, but that sounds too dramatic.

As I stared at that child, I started to feel the least expected emotion in a situation like this: happiness. I was happy. For the first time in a long time, I was happy; happy that I was dying instead of her. She was so young and had so much to live for, and I hoped she would grow up and make something of herself and help change the world, even if I wouldn’t be alive to see those changes. Because something needs to change if the world has any hope of living on.

A police man knocked on my window, and it startled my thoughts of a future were things were different. He opened the door and asked me questions, some of which I answered without pain, most I answered with. He helped me out, and placed me onto a gurney. They rushed me to the hospital, and I would explain this more thoroughly, but I don’t remember much of it, I think I was sedated for most of it.

I do remember waking up in the hospital bed though, with an IV sunk in my skin and the consistent beeping of the heart monitor in time with my beat. And the one thing I do remember about that hospital, more than anything else, was wondering why I was alive. That man and I had suffered from the same accident; we crashed into the same pole at the same speed for the same reason. But he died, and I lived. I couldn’t understand it then, and I don’t understand it now.

I don’t know the moral of this story; I don't know much anymore. But there is one thing I do know for a fact. Irony is not always what you don’t expect to happen and does. Sometimes it’s what you expect to happen, what should happen, and doesn’t.