Sep. 03, 2011 6:01 AM
What matters? When you're in a car that's filling with water, what matters?
Whose fault is it? Your own? The idiot in the M3 who made you swerve into a ditch? Whoever put the ditch there? Why does it matter?
What matters when you're going to die?
30 minutes previously
Craig left his shop. The car park outside would normally be full, but heavy rain had driven most people to order online. Luckily for him, he had managed to nab the premier parking spot, right outside the door, that morning. Literally 20 metres away, he could see his battered old 206. If he had enough guts to go into the manager's office and ask for a raise, the first thing he'd do would be to get rid of the old banger and buy a bright red Civic. Not that he'd be able to drive it, the insurance premiums for 18 year old boys were ridiculous. Even with GoCompare, he couldn't get one much below 5 grand per year.
He pulled out, turned left and headed under the archway with "Thankyou for shopping at Tesco" on it. Right, along the dual carriageway to the coast road. By Craig's estimate, he should be home in his shared flat in about fifty minutes - he could easily get there in fifteen, but the coast road was much nicer. As he drove fown the carriageway, the rain cleared. It was a concentrated thunderstorm sort of thing - all of it was poised over a few square kilometres. When he turned onto the coastal road fifteen minutes later, the sky was almost clear.
A blood-red sun shone from the western horizon. A few stray clouds danced in front of it. Craig pushed his ridiculously long brown hair out of his face to get a clearer look - the sky was orange and red, fading into blue and purple towards the landward horizon. It was the sort of thing you'd expect at the end of a romance film, except not computer-generated. Had he time, Craig would probably have taken a few pictures of it. But it was his turn to cook tonight, and Tom, back at the flat, was very impatient when it came to food. Which is why Craig took the coast road in the first place - he wanted to calm down, and this was a good place for it.
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There was no doubting it - Jack was a massive showoff even when nobody was around to see him. So when he had drunk four tins of Carlsberg, was in a driver's seat with four drunk mates in the car with him and on a secluded road with a rather large drop on the left hand side, inevitability took over.
It didn't matter if he totalled the M3 he was in either - his dad was loaded, so he could just buy him a new one. In a better colour, perhaps - dark green was hideous. Not that Jack was in any condition to tink straight - he couldn't drink half a can of weak beer without getting totally hammered, let alone four full cans. And now he was showing off. There was a ditch running down the left side of the road, dug as a redundant safety measure years ago. The idea was that any cars that veered off road would be caught by the ditch before it fell off the cliff. It didn't actually work in practice, but the theory was sound. Nearly.
Jack veered left, getting as close as he could to the ditch while singing drunken songs with the other people in his car. Just as they reached the climax of the song, though, the M3 lurched forward - a result of the ditch. Jack swerved right, laughed, and did the same thing again. And again. The result was that when the car came close enough to falling in the ditch, Jack would turn - very sharply - into the right hand lane to recover.
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Craig saw the other car and thought nothing of it. It was keeping left, anyway. At forty miles per hour, though, even a slight wobble can be dangerous in the right place. When it came to someone in the other lane playing chicken with cars in your own lane, that was a recipe for disaster. So it was in this case - when the M3 swerved back - apparently not even seeing Craig's car - Craig instinctively swerved to avoid it. He swerved right. The cars came close to missing each other, but the 206 nipped the M3's rear bumper, knocking it off track completely, then span tail first into the ditch. Forty miles per hour gave the 206 enough momentum to roll out of the ditch as well. After a few seconds perching on it's side on the cliff, it rolled again. Down. Down. Towards the sea below.
The car floated at first - it was hardly airtight, but there was enough air there to keep it from sinking just yet. Craig tried to open the door, and failed - there was already water against the door. It would now be very hard to open until there water level was equal, and by then it would most likely be too late anyway. Unfortunately for Craig, too, was that he had once tried, for a bet, to get into his car through a window. He had got stuck halfway - which meant if he did smash a window, it would just let water in quicker. He thought - if he got out, this would make an excellent anecdote. He thought about how much abuse he was going to have to put up with from his flatmates for this. But as water pooled round his thighs, more melancholy thoughts took over.
Why him? Couldn't someone else have been driving down the road at that particular time on this particular day?
And eventually, melancholy gave way to nihilism.
What matters? When you're in a car that's filling with water, what matters?
Whose fault is it? Your own? The idiot in the M3 who made you swerve into a ditch? Whoever put the ditch there? Why does it matter?
What matters when you're going to die?
He didn't even try to open the door once the water level equalised. The car was resting on the ocean floor now - it could have been five metres down, it could have been five hundred. And even if he did make it to the surface, there was nowhere in miles that he could get out of the water. And Craig had never learned to swim. So he just kept his mouth close to the roof, and as the water closed in, he breathed in as deeply as possible.
After thirty seconds, he had to exhale. After fifteen more, he had to inhale.
The first thing Craig was aware of was burning. His chest seemed to writhe in his ribcage as the water filled his lungs. For maybe a minute - which seemed a lot longer than sixty seconds - all Craig felt was pain. It began to die down, but it still hurt.
Craig found out that what they say about your life flashing before you was utter rubbish. All he saw was the dash of his car, made blurry by the water. He saw the ripped upholstry. But nothing else. As a sense of peace came over him, Craig realsied that life mightjust be overrated anyway. But then he remembered something. The sunset that night. It had been simply fantastic.
All of which meant that Craig's last thought before darkness took over, before he died, was that he didn't want to go. That he wanted to stay alive.
Then blackness took over, and Craig departed.
Whose fault is it? Your own? The idiot in the M3 who made you swerve into a ditch? Whoever put the ditch there? Why does it matter?
What matters when you're going to die?
30 minutes previously
Craig left his shop. The car park outside would normally be full, but heavy rain had driven most people to order online. Luckily for him, he had managed to nab the premier parking spot, right outside the door, that morning. Literally 20 metres away, he could see his battered old 206. If he had enough guts to go into the manager's office and ask for a raise, the first thing he'd do would be to get rid of the old banger and buy a bright red Civic. Not that he'd be able to drive it, the insurance premiums for 18 year old boys were ridiculous. Even with GoCompare, he couldn't get one much below 5 grand per year.
He pulled out, turned left and headed under the archway with "Thankyou for shopping at Tesco" on it. Right, along the dual carriageway to the coast road. By Craig's estimate, he should be home in his shared flat in about fifty minutes - he could easily get there in fifteen, but the coast road was much nicer. As he drove fown the carriageway, the rain cleared. It was a concentrated thunderstorm sort of thing - all of it was poised over a few square kilometres. When he turned onto the coastal road fifteen minutes later, the sky was almost clear.
A blood-red sun shone from the western horizon. A few stray clouds danced in front of it. Craig pushed his ridiculously long brown hair out of his face to get a clearer look - the sky was orange and red, fading into blue and purple towards the landward horizon. It was the sort of thing you'd expect at the end of a romance film, except not computer-generated. Had he time, Craig would probably have taken a few pictures of it. But it was his turn to cook tonight, and Tom, back at the flat, was very impatient when it came to food. Which is why Craig took the coast road in the first place - he wanted to calm down, and this was a good place for it.
------------------------------------------------------------
There was no doubting it - Jack was a massive showoff even when nobody was around to see him. So when he had drunk four tins of Carlsberg, was in a driver's seat with four drunk mates in the car with him and on a secluded road with a rather large drop on the left hand side, inevitability took over.
It didn't matter if he totalled the M3 he was in either - his dad was loaded, so he could just buy him a new one. In a better colour, perhaps - dark green was hideous. Not that Jack was in any condition to tink straight - he couldn't drink half a can of weak beer without getting totally hammered, let alone four full cans. And now he was showing off. There was a ditch running down the left side of the road, dug as a redundant safety measure years ago. The idea was that any cars that veered off road would be caught by the ditch before it fell off the cliff. It didn't actually work in practice, but the theory was sound. Nearly.
Jack veered left, getting as close as he could to the ditch while singing drunken songs with the other people in his car. Just as they reached the climax of the song, though, the M3 lurched forward - a result of the ditch. Jack swerved right, laughed, and did the same thing again. And again. The result was that when the car came close enough to falling in the ditch, Jack would turn - very sharply - into the right hand lane to recover.
------------------------------------------------------------
Craig saw the other car and thought nothing of it. It was keeping left, anyway. At forty miles per hour, though, even a slight wobble can be dangerous in the right place. When it came to someone in the other lane playing chicken with cars in your own lane, that was a recipe for disaster. So it was in this case - when the M3 swerved back - apparently not even seeing Craig's car - Craig instinctively swerved to avoid it. He swerved right. The cars came close to missing each other, but the 206 nipped the M3's rear bumper, knocking it off track completely, then span tail first into the ditch. Forty miles per hour gave the 206 enough momentum to roll out of the ditch as well. After a few seconds perching on it's side on the cliff, it rolled again. Down. Down. Towards the sea below.
The car floated at first - it was hardly airtight, but there was enough air there to keep it from sinking just yet. Craig tried to open the door, and failed - there was already water against the door. It would now be very hard to open until there water level was equal, and by then it would most likely be too late anyway. Unfortunately for Craig, too, was that he had once tried, for a bet, to get into his car through a window. He had got stuck halfway - which meant if he did smash a window, it would just let water in quicker. He thought - if he got out, this would make an excellent anecdote. He thought about how much abuse he was going to have to put up with from his flatmates for this. But as water pooled round his thighs, more melancholy thoughts took over.
Why him? Couldn't someone else have been driving down the road at that particular time on this particular day?
And eventually, melancholy gave way to nihilism.
What matters? When you're in a car that's filling with water, what matters?
Whose fault is it? Your own? The idiot in the M3 who made you swerve into a ditch? Whoever put the ditch there? Why does it matter?
What matters when you're going to die?
He didn't even try to open the door once the water level equalised. The car was resting on the ocean floor now - it could have been five metres down, it could have been five hundred. And even if he did make it to the surface, there was nowhere in miles that he could get out of the water. And Craig had never learned to swim. So he just kept his mouth close to the roof, and as the water closed in, he breathed in as deeply as possible.
After thirty seconds, he had to exhale. After fifteen more, he had to inhale.
The first thing Craig was aware of was burning. His chest seemed to writhe in his ribcage as the water filled his lungs. For maybe a minute - which seemed a lot longer than sixty seconds - all Craig felt was pain. It began to die down, but it still hurt.
Craig found out that what they say about your life flashing before you was utter rubbish. All he saw was the dash of his car, made blurry by the water. He saw the ripped upholstry. But nothing else. As a sense of peace came over him, Craig realsied that life mightjust be overrated anyway. But then he remembered something. The sunset that night. It had been simply fantastic.
All of which meant that Craig's last thought before darkness took over, before he died, was that he didn't want to go. That he wanted to stay alive.
Then blackness took over, and Craig departed.