#FridayFlash: The Last Page

The old Corolla came fast through the intersection, doing at least fifty through the school zone, maybe more. William R. Granville Jr. watched it from the driver's seat of his Audi A4, still almost perfect in the second year of a two year lease. He sat at the light, waiting for his turn arrow, like a good citizen. Not on his cell phone, not checking messages, not distracted by anything, William was present in the moment and just where he was supposed to be. He squinted against the morning sunlight through his windshield and saw the oncoming car change lanes to get around a slowpoke.

Like a stumbling horse, the Corolla skidded sideways on a glaze of ice and came right at him. From the moment the other driver lost control to the moment he slammed into the Audi was only a little more than a second, hardly enough time for William to register what he was seeing.

It took much less than a second for William's door to crush inward, the heavy maroon plastic shattering to reveal the silvery edge of tearing metal. The front and side airbags exploded in a cloud that looked white at first, but then turned into a rainbow swirl as they whumped into William's face and chest with the force of a swung tennis racket. He couldn't see the ragged sheet metal of the door jammed inward and upward against his thigh, couldn't see the blood and bone spraying as the knife edge torn into his left thigh.

To be sure, he felt it. Felt the discrete sensations of pressure on his leg, the burning of tearing flesh, the otherworldy deepness of sensation as his left femur splintered and was driven upward by the impact of the Corolla. He felt the separation of his pelvis like a door in the wall of the universe violently yanked open for the first time since the moment of Creation itself. After that, everything, even the sun-bright shrieks from his dislocated hip and tearing back muscles, were drowned out by the unbelievable cascade of pain from his face. The airbag broke his nose and shoved the broken frame and lens of his eyeglasses into his left eye, crushing the eye socket from the bridge of his nose inward.

It was more than pain, more than an entire world made of solid pain, where rivers of pain tumbled over pain-cliffs, sending a spray of pain droplets into the pain-air where the light of pain made a permanent pain rainbow that shone forever and filled the eyes and minds and lives of all the pain-people with the colors of pain forever and ever and ever.

William felt it all, but with the kind of detachment that comes from being at a meeting that you weren't invited to, where you were truly running with the big dogs. He felt outclassed, inadequate to be the recipient of such distilled agony. There wasn't time for the usual flood of anger, excitement, and determination to overcome all odds and pull out a win. This wasn't like the hostile board meetings and conference tables where he could  hold his own until he was able to recruit an ally or two.

He was alone, and alone had to play the cards he'd been dealt. It wasn't fair, but then, life wasn't fair. Never had been. Anyway, the facts were plain: he was going to have to put this one in the loss column, try to make it up somehow later. For William, there was always time to make the balance sheet come out right, always time to settle scores, always time to turn old enemies into supporters, always time to come up smelling like a rose.

Except... the light was fading, and he was cold.

The pain was still there, but he wasn't aware of it any more than a fish is aware of the water. The pain was everywhere and everything, which meant it was nowhere and nothing. Behind the pain, though, was a cold, red darkness unlike anything Billy had ever seen. Or was it light? The world was a roaring silence of pain and cold, but the colder he got the warmer he felt. The cold warmth expanded into the bright darkness, replacing the numb agony that filled the sky from horizon to horizon.

Suspended in this new world of all-consuming yet unfelt agony, William could see nothing. In that timeless moment, he felt the presence of another, a calm and masterful Other, someone who knew his way around this landscape of pain and darkness. A strong, gentle hand placed itself on his, loosening his grip on the steering wheel. William hadn't realized he was still holding on to the wheel, still had a grasp of the physical reality of his everyday normalcy. His hand was guided to a book, one like his old college textbooks to judge by the feel of it. A thick hardback with pages that were glossy to his fingertips, the book was on the last page. It was, he knew, the story of his life.

In the business world, there were times when you had to make decisions you didn't want to make, all too often as you accepted the consequences of other people's bad decisions. William had made his way in the world by not complaining about how hard the work might be or how risky the outcomes. He always said, "never worry about the future, never apologize for the past, just see that today goes in the win column". That wasn't always possible, of course, but it was the attitude of success that mattered.

William knew what the Other wanted him to do. He hesitated only a moment, then closed the book firmly. If he had to close out his account with a loss, so be it - what's done is done and he would take it like a man. Steeped in cold, black agony that he could no longer feel, William waited for the end.

To his surprise, the hand of the Other guided him through the darkness to another book, one at least twice as thick as the previous book. Gently but irresistibly, the Other led his fingertips across the embossed cover. It was rasping and rough to his touch, like sandpaper or sharkskin. The entire cover was taken up by a presswork circle with the book's title in raised letters in the middle. He slid his hand over the cover, trying to make out the words.

"The Life and Times of  William R. Granville Jr.

Volume 2: From A One-Track Mind to A One-Eyed Amputee"

The Other held his wrist, guiding him to open the book, to turn over the first page of Volume 2 of the story of his life. William screamed and fought, tried with all his might to pull himself free, but the Other, with the strength of the entire world, forced his hand forward.

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