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#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.

===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.

22 comments:

  1. Tony that was amazing! You grabbed hold of me and wouldn't let go. Brilliant writing, absolutely master class. Bravo and more bravo!!!!

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  2. Excellent and a great finish! ^__^

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  3. That's one #NaNo winner who won't have to complain about The Muse.

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    1. It looks like Volume 2 is where the story really gets interesting.

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  4. Horribly descriptive -- but I mean that in a good way! Fascinating ending, too. Nice work!

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  5. Good lord! That was ... damn, that was amazing. The pain descriptions made me cringe but it was the ending that was a real punch to the gut.

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    1. Thanks, Sonya. I hoped to make this pretty visceral.

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  6. Excellent flash. Loved the lead up to his attitude about career and life in general, the tease of death via the appearance of the Other and volume 1, and then the arrival of volume 2 with its unstoppable force.

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    1. I'm glad you liked it, Richard. Underlying this is the idea that how we live our lives is up to us, but how and when we end them isn't necessarily also in our hands.

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  7. Good hooks in this one! I particularly like the ending, with the twist of the second volume. William's ability to accept death much more easily than a lifetime of struggle is interesting too, thought provoking.

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    1. It's easy to be a tiger when you have a mouthful of teeth. What's interesting is how he will deal with being knocked down a lot lower than being on the losing end of a business deal.

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  8. That description of the crash was truly horrific but I think the ending is almost more so - he accepts his fate, only to be forced back. Must be difficult to make your peace with something, only to have someone else move the goal posts.

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    1. That's the key, right there. His life has been upended... how will he respond?

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  9. Wow. You've really captured that feeling of time slowing down during a crisis, Tony. And I love the glimpse of what his future holds at the end. Great story!

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  10. Excellent, and what a creepy ending! My only complaint would be to myself, having read it just before sleeping. *grips covers*

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  11. So true, how someone else's bad decision can change everything in two seconds. I loved how he struggled to not open Volume 2. But given his "previous life," I could see him re-inventing himself with a pegleg and eyepatch, and becoming "Cap'n Will, Hostile Takeover Master."

    I also loved how the last page wasn't the last page after all.

    [Oh noes! You've let the captcha monster sneak in!]

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    1. That's the big question, isn't it? Will he revert to a "success attitude", or will this event cause him to change his outlook completely?

      As for the captchas, I might change it back. Was tired of dealing with all the spam comments.

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