The day the traffic light didn’t turn green, everything stopped. A silence filled the car, a thrumming. The sound was best described as intentionally holding your breath, excitedly trapping as much air as you can hold inside, then realizing you can’t let go. You can’t take another breath to release the pressure. Time goes backwards as panic begins to fail you. The sound of dread.
Shelby gasps for air and pushes the gas pedal. The shrill radio combined with the uproar of the engine tenses his shoulders farther.
BOOM! The dull thud of metal on metal was the last thing he heard, before being engulfed in a color he couldn’t quite place, close to black.
At least for a little while.
...
After what feels like a short time in a pillowy sleep, Shelby hears his name being called out to him from afar followed by a queasiness. His whole body was numb, his head was pounding. Primarily he felt like vomiting.
In the distance, he heard mumbling, some numbers or letters. Suddenly, he felt tired. The thought of lifting his eyelids seemed impossible. Everything down to his nose felt limp and droopy.
He noticed his chest was no longer rising. He tried to push his heart to the ceiling and noticed the immense weight on his entire body. As an emotion sporadic as fear failed him, defeat loomed over him. The air he had had too much of before was gone. His body went stale.
...
The second time Shelby returned to consciousness; he first noticed the sunlight. Then he noticed the unfamiliar window it was streaming in from. The realization he wasn’t in his bed, safe and at home, but in what seemed to be a hospital. The memories of a car accident clouded his mind. Pushing them away, he saw Toll sitting beside the bed, staring intently.
...
Shelby could soon walk again. Walking had never felt so bouncy though Shelby’s head was sullen. Spending time with loved ones was all he strived for. Anger was an emotion he would never feel again. Provocation wouldn’t affect him. He had deliberately turned away from death. His foot had never met that gas pedal.
The gnaw of black dress shoes on unfrequented grass. The crunch involved with tissues and their packaging. The hum of polite conversation. Shelby greeted each of the visitors, petted the shaggy dogs some had brought, and laughed with the children playing tag in their prettiest dresses and button downs.
Though Shelby was filled with the muchness of everything, of the mingling and the comfort, he noticed Toll was not there. He had not come to this party. He didn’t come to witness and congratulate Shelby on his walking. The crunch of wood splintering.
Shelby’s glee was interrupted by a foul and soggy smell. His skin felt as though it was covered in a sheen of uncomfortable wet. As the crisp smell of oxygen quickly transitioned into the suffocating smell of earth, Shelby stiflingly remembered his inability to breathe. Remembered that last breath he had unwillingly released back into the world. Remembered all the breaths he had borrowed. Shelby couldn’t breathe but the putrid smell of rot filled his lungs, nevertheless.
...
In those first years some halfheartedly came to visit.
Later, everyone left him. No one visited. No one left flowers. No one lit candles. Madness chained him as the moss chained his stone. He forgot his name and the faces of the people he had known. Listening to the occasional weeping in the distance, he yearned for closeness in a way he couldn’t place.
Closeness was the only thing he remembered. He remembered how he had never had it.
Everyone had left him.
He had left everyone.