The woman’s limp body is held in the driver’s seat by her seatbelt. The man stumbles out of the passenger side, staggering, apparently drunk. Blood drips down his chin, creating a crimson bib on the front of his shirt. Pedestrians and passers-by fly into action.
“Someone call 911!”
“Ishokay eye ush ad eye eesh ulld,” the man explains, arms flailing.
He runs to the driver’s side and attempts to bring the woman back to the world of the living. As he slaps her face, she comes around. Blinking, she looks around and tries to make sense of where she is. Her eyes come to rest on the man’s bloody face and she passes out again.
The gathering crowd is confused. “Did you see what happened?” they inquire of one another. “They crossed all four lanes, but didn’t actually hit anything.” “Why is he bleeding? Is she dead?”
A police officer shows up.
The man is desperate to explain, but his words come out like gurgles and he’s spitting blood on everyone. He wobbles. The woman wakes up again. She can’t answer questions. She sits on the sidewalk with her dizzy head between her knees and her eyes looking to the ground. Not at her husband. No, don’t look at him.
Ambulance sirens wail in the distance. “O ahooence,” the man says to the officer. He follows this up with an explanation of the bizarre scene: “Eye ad oo aff eye eesh ulld…”
I had to have my teeth pulled. All of them. I’d be put under, so the dentist told me to have someone with me to drive me home because I would still be groggy when they woke me up…
The bottom half of his face is still frozen as he relays his tale, so it has to be repeated several times before the officer understands.
The dentist packed the man’s mouth with cotton and he and his wife headed home. With no feeling in his mouth or chin, the man was unaware that blood, soaked through the cotton, formed a little red creak down his chin to the front of his shirt. He was oblivious and happy as he floated on the nitric oxide cloud on the way home.
The woman can’t stand the sight of blood. It makes her faint. But there won’t be any blood, so she’s okay. Except when she looks over at her husband, as she drives along the busy, four-lane, downtown street, there is blood. Blood all over his mouth, chin, neck, shirt. Oh no. Good night.
Something is wrong with the man’s happy journey. Are they supposed to be heading into oncoming traffic? They’re heading into oncoming traffic! He reacts slowly and clumsily, but finally gets his foot across the shifter and onto the brake. The car comes to a stop on the sidewalk, just inches from a brick building.
“So no one is hurt?” asks Officer.
“’O,” says my Dad.
Mom is looking away. The police officer sends them on their way, with Dad in the driver’s seat.
Mom dwells on the What Ifs. What if:
someone had been standing on the sidewalk?
there hadn’t been a break in the oncoming traffic?
Dad hadn’t hit the brakes in time?
I think life is bloody funny.
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This story is really well done. I enjoyed it from the first bit of dialogue with his cotton-mouth speech. Although I really do like it as is, a way to change it up a bit would be to segway into the actual speech in a subtler way ("I had to have my teeth pulled...") There is room there for a bit of creative rendition of how he actually got them to understand. I also got momentarily mixed up when you say "I had to get" which jumps to the first person from the third person narrative of the other paragraphs. It might be interesting to go instead to a cut-scene of the dentist's assistant giving instructions on a paper that could be pulled out for the cop; or having the flashback cut right away to "His wife had helped him get into the car. She had smiled but he had not. The bottom half of his face was still frozen." which would lead us into the scene of the drive home and the sight of blood/crash.
ReplyDeleteI love the story, and can't help wondering if the last paragraph fits with the humour of your piece; and the last line is from a first person point of view again, which doesn't quite follow. If you end it with "Dad in the driver's seat", I think it would end the piece quite well. You did a superb job at creating suspense and keeping me wondering until you chose to let the cat out of the bag. The clues were just enough, and I loved going back after I knew for sure to reread the story with a new perspective. Cheers,
Yuk-Sem
A few other little things would be that in the last minute of the story, you inserted titles (Mom and Dad). Although it may bring it home to you, I am not sure if it adds credibility or any significant impact to the story. If you had kept it in the third person, (man, woman, he, she) would it be any less believable?
ReplyDeleteI am trying to find the "good luck...flossing" tie-in with the title though...and I am assuming it has to do with the not killing anyone and the dentist foreshadowing, but I think it does not set up your story as much as a title could...
If you changed the first paragraph and the second (someone call 911 to begin, then the staggering man) you could get a title such as "Ishokay" which could get curiousity and a play on the rest of the story. Once again though, good job!
hey
ReplyDeleteI thought you did a great job on this story. You kept me guessing right through til the end. I kept trying to figure out if it was you in this story, or if it was someone else. Personally, I think the best stories are the ones that keep you guessing. Great job tracie!
Aside from the title, I thought that we were talking about a drunk driving accident. When you speak of the incident, you call it a tale. This also lead me to think of a drunk driver.
ReplyDeleteI have read a lot of posts tonight, so I could be way off.