0 comments

Crime Bedtime

It just will notvgo away all those years on nearly half a centuary aho. How vivid ones mind is from babe to adult. I can relive it and picture as if it where yesterday.

My first car green a little 11,00 car with the cream leather seats and clocks inside on the dash board. It was a sheer joy at twenty one to polish that car.

Oh, why did it have to happen to me ? The event stays always in the back of my mind. Imagining the terror. Seeing the people six of them drunk in a four seater Cortina. Said "They were out celebrating their engagement. Where they? In a line of traffic statioary when he took a bend in the Cortina ended up on the wrong side of the road pulling my small car into the midle of the road.

Like being on a merry go round in slow motion. My car facing the wrong way. People in the line of traffic drove off. Only one decent human being stopped to give evidence that night. Police said we would have been killed out right if he had hit the car another inch. And he would have gone over a brick wall with the Cortina.

I got out of my car asking, "what have you done." Alot of angry fists flew from the car window. We were all put in the same ambulance unfortunately. The woman kept screaming on the streacher about her eye. The ambulance went very slow, gradually I saw her blue eye close.

The whole ambulance wrecked of drink, the paramedic asked did she drink regularly like this answer "yes". By the fellow who wrote two cars off. He could not be breathlised becouse he had cracked ribs.

A police prosecution six months for the case to come to court. A local magistrates court. By then the woman who had lost an eye and was in a wheel chair ould give evidence becouse they were not married. A good solicter , lies told he had two bald tyres on the front of his car. I was only a bystander in a line of traffic. In court he offered to marry the woman. Sympathy of the judge.

After one of the people in the crash came over bragging "Well he got off?". He shold have been sent down. I still do not think, what happend was right. How dare his solcitor state or keep stating I had not long passed my driving test.

It could have happended to anyone? Why me? To meet such people on the road. Everything is so vivid even he knitted covers in the Cortina painted bright blue, C registration. An innocent person I have carried the image of that night for most of my life. Throug no fault of my own.

Now courts are alot more strict over drink driving. An element of fate maybe the case. It should have gone to a Crown Court.

It happend and I cannot wash it away. How horrid to be told by one of them that he got off. Will she regret being with him? Who knows. Its all down to fate and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. That car my first car was a birthday gift for my 21st birthday.

I do not drive afraid of driving down hills. I become nervous of other traffic approaching me. I wonder if these people who gave me this phobia can sleep at night? Over the years have they showed any remorse. Cetainly I did not get the out come that I was expecting.

One may say life goes on, think of better things, happy pictures writing getting published. Friends I have meet, flowers, gifts, life loving others So why am I still haunted by a picture of an event that should never have happended due to some error of judgement.

Being told by the police that trying to break free he pulled my car into the centre of the road. What about the people at least four cars that turned around and drove off that night. What happended to them? Have they paid in other ways. Did it ease someones conscence by phoning to report the incident before driving off.

So many questions. Only a man who was following the Cortina and saw it lurch off the pub car park stopped to give evidence, to be picked apart by the guilty parties solictor.

After to follow myself and my friend into a cafe near the court and brag about getting of with a few points and bald tyres showed what sort of people they where. Over he years have heir thoughts and ideas changed do they relive moments. Becouse I do and know its something that will not let go. It has hung onto to me like another limb, although invisable to the naked eye.

The mind being a strange and a marvel, that can give and take so much. Reminding one of memories unexpected early mornings. Sleepless moments. Followed by good maybe what happend has made me the person I have become a writer wth feelings and ideas to be expressed or that need to be told.

A love of life and how to express ideas on paper. To help others I so hope so. Maybe it was not my fate to die that night or my friend in the passenger side of the car when we were hit. It could have been worse if somone else speeding had crashed into us causing a three car pile up in the centre of the road that night.

I try to remain optimistic about events over the years that is all I have to hang on to. Not knowing how it has affected others being the case. Another day memories that stay. Will stay, like the toll of a bell, till sleep finally takes over.

Another time another place maybe things would have been so diffrent. All as I saw at he time wa bright lights coming towards me. My friend and I, getting down on the floor of my small car. The other vechicle so much heaver 15oo. A mircle that we survived at all.

Another time at three years of age falling off, a pile of magazines in the back of my grandfathers Rover. The back door of the car sprung open. Remembring the car wheels driving around me in the road. Lucky then. Only to meet up with a car load of drunks in a four seater Cortina years later. How strange is that? Questions answers fate . Answers we can not always answer even years on.

December 20, 2024 21:51

You must sign up or log in to submit a comment.

0 comments

RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

Bring your short stories to life

Fuse character, story, and conflict with tools in Reedsy Studio. 100% free.