Windows can crack and break

   Sometimes were your riding in the passenger seat, up front next to the driver and it’s a long road trip you can fall into a trance like state. Your eyes get tired of watching the traffic so you start looking at the scenery. After the first hour you’ve run out of small talk and the radio needs to be adjusted as you go from one radio stations airwaves to another while going a steady 55 miles an hour. You rest you head against the headrest and try and get into the most comfortable position you can. The road, the car and the front window and side window become your world.

  The rain has started falling. You watch the rain drops hit the window and then get swept away by the windshield wiper. You look out the side window and watch the drops fighting gravity because of the speed of the car. You talk with your friend who is driving to make sure their doing okay. You can see the roads getting slicker and blacker as the rain falls harder and stronger. The light is fading from the sky as dark heavy rain clouds fill up every patch of blue. Your almost asleep but not quite and you’re wishing that you were at your destination. Even though you’ve only been in the car for about four hours it feels like forever. There’s nothing to look at but the rain hitting the window and the windshield wipers going back and forth. The lights from the other cars are little blurs of white and red. You fall asleep almost without trying.

  You don’t really know your asleep because in your dream you’re riding in a car except suddenly there’s a hole in the windshield like a bullet had hit it. There’s shatter glass around the hole and sharp edges. You want to wake up but you can’t. You can hear the wind and feel the cold rain but you can’t wake up. Suddenly your eyes fly open and you feel someone shaking you. But the hole in the window is still there. You hear someone calling your name and you realize the car isn’t moving. You turn your head and as you stare at your friend’s (the driver) eyes, you realize your awake. So now you have to figure out what happened. You look back at the front window and now you notice not only that it has a hole but the it has a bug bulge in it like someone’s head. You feel your head and then look at your hand. It has blood one it. You suddenly notice the flashing lights and you friend is beginning gently pushed aside and some guy in a uniform is asking you. “Do you know your name? What year is it? Can you follow this light with your eyes? “Another guy is putting a brace around your neck and asking you if you can move your legs. You call out to your friend, “what happened?”  He replied, “We were in an accident and I thought you were dead.”

 I felt them put me on the cot and as they rolled me toward the ambulance, I looked at the car. I was a small compact sedan and it had smashed dead center into a station wagon. The whole front of the car was smashed in, there was the hole in the window, and the windshield had a big cracked lump in it from my head. The EMT told me that my driver had not accounted for the slickness of the roads when he came to the stop sign and we had run right into the other car. He also told me that they had been trying to revive me for about 30 minutes. He rested my head back against the pillow as they loaded me in. The EMT’s started dapping the blood of my face and they told me I had some glass fragments imbedded in my face.

 All the way to the hospital I kept trying to figure out if I had died and come back to life. I mean it was pretty strange that I was dreaming about the accident. Was I reliving what had happened in order to return to life from death? It seems pretty weird that I would have fallen asleep and then woken up from what I thought was a dream only to find out it had all happened and I just thought I was dreaming.

    By the time I had gotten admitted my friend had called my parents and the leader of the Church group whose event we were on are way to. The nurses told me I had to stay awake because I had a concussion and that they had to have a doctor remove the glass and sew up the gash in my forehead and over my eyes. I just kept thinking about that hole in the window and the bump my head made in the windshield. In my mind it seemed like I must have died, gotten an instant reply from the powers that be saying, “look this is what has just happened to your earthly body but it’s not time for you to go. So, were sending you right back and it will be okay”

  I still have a scar my forehead from that day. I was released from the hospital and ended up going to the Christian seminar I had signed up for. The leader of the church made a big deal about how Satan tries to keep us from learning. The only thing I was wondering is if my friend had raised from the dead through his prayers. I don’t think I’ll every forget that broken window. Nor will I forget what it was like to be dead, think I was dreaming, only to wake up forty-five minutes after the actual event had happened and not even aware that it was real. Guess things happen in our lives that we’ll never really fully understand.