Essay/Term paper: Plans

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Term Papers

Plans

It was a gorgeous summer morning as I, my brother David, sister
Marcia, mom, dad, and baby girl were traveling home to Laramie from
Colorado Springs where we had gone to visit my grandma. The atmosphere
in the car was fun and filled with laughter. We were glad to be together. Our
chatter was constant and our conversations often overlapped. One learned
young that if you want to be heard in my family, you must merely speak
louder than everyone else. Or, you might simply say, "Would you please shut
up for a minute so I can say something important?" We all understood that
such a plain and politely spoken command was not meant to be offensive or
at all disrespectful.
We were a bit louder than usual that morning as we had great plans for
the day. Since we had to travel through Denver, we all agreed that we should
eat at a nice restaurant and then go to the zoo where we could eat some more
and see the animals then probably eat some more.
Daddy was a bit tense and growly, his usual demeanor when traffic
was thick as it was on that Friday morning. "Everyone and their Grandma is
on this one road to Denver," he grumbled. My Daddy is claustrophobic. He
hates traffic which is the main reason I think we moved long ago to
Wyoming, the land of wide-open spaces. "You can drive more than a
hundred miles on a Wyoming highway without seeing another car," Daddy
would often brag.
That was not the case, however, in Colorado. The cars were lined up
one after another, traveling 75 miles per hour, to the horizon and beyond. We
passengers paid scant attention to the outside world as we were involved in a
thought-provoking discussion regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the
highly educational hit movie of the summer, Independence Day. The movie
answered the question: Are we alone in the Universe? with a loud no when
aliens arrived and began demolishing major cities all over the world. We all
gazed out the windshield as we laughed at my sister's comment about the
president in the film: "He was so broken up over the little wife's death that he
went immediately and put on his flying suit to go kick those alien's buts
himself."
"And how 'bout the stripper who was perfectly happy in her job and...,"
David began and never finished as a large truck two to three cars ahead began
rolling away from us straight down the highway.
Someone was screaming. Someone else was yelling.
"Oh my God. Oh, my God!"
I heard the unreal sound of a very loud syncopated rhythm like a huge
unearthly drum mixed with the nightmarish noise of metal bending, crushing,
and scraping, glass shattering with each thud of that heavy truck against the
inflexible pavement of the highway.
"There's a guy on the road! Oh God!"
"Stop the car! Stop the car!"
Brakes were squeeling, screaming, as drivers reacted. The acrid smell
of burning permeated the air. What was that smell? Rubber. There was tire
rubber all over the road as ten or more cars skidded to stops.
Someone was still screaming. Someone was crying. Who was that
crying? Oh, it was me. My face was wet.
Mama was hysterical. "Oh, no. No. Jesus, please help," she said over
and over.
The baby, awakened from her nap was crying, shrieking. She didn't
understand why the world had just erupted into chaos.
Finally, our car stopped moving. The seconds had passed so quickly
yet almost as if in slow-motion too. The truck was lying on it's top 30 feet
away in the ditch. The young man who had mysteriously appeared on the
highway was standing on his feet, just as he had landed, five feet in front of
us. It's a miracle he wasn't run over.
"Mama, you've got to get control of yourself. Quit, stop, stop
screaming!" The craziest thought flitted through my mind. I might have to
slap my mother if she didn't calm down.
Daddy, David, and Marcia were in the front seat. They quickly leapt
out of the car.
That poor boy was standing in the middle of the highway. He must
have come out of the truck. I didn't see it happen. He was running around.
He grabbed hold of a woman from a travel trailer that had stopped after the
accident. He was hugging her, clutching her so tightly. "Just like a drowning
man," I thought. She didn't look like she knew him.
"Someone help him. Oh, please, someone help him," I kept saying. I
gave the baby her pacifier. Content now, she went back to sleep.
Daddy asked the boy from the truck a question. Daddy and David ran
towards the now still, silent truck. "Oh, God. There's someone else in there,"
I said.
Marcia was holding the young man from the truck's hand. He was
obviously shaking. He kept burying his face in his hands. He wanted to run
to the truck. I could tell Marcia didn't want him to. He said something to her,
I didn't know what. She lifted up the back of his t-shirt. "Oh, God." The
skin was scraped completely off his back. It was bleeding everywhere. He
shook his head as if to say it didn't hurt.
Daddy had reached the truck. After he had peered inside a few
seconds, he turned away. He talked to another motorist who had stopped.
Several cars had stopped. At least four people with car phones were walking
around. Daddy and David started back towards Marcia and the young man.
They looked pale, shocked. Daddy put his hand on the young man's shoulder.
He spoke some words. The young man shook his head and made a move to
run towards the broken, twisted pile that was a vehicle. Daddy told him not
to go.
Sirens blared shrilly as an ambulance and police cars arrived. David
led the paramedic to the young man and then came to the window on Mama's
side of the car. His voice shook and tears glided down his face as he told us
what he knew. "There were two guys in the truck. The one thrown out looks
like he's going to be o.k. The other boy was decapitated," he said.
The paramedic was leading the young man away. "Don't let him go," I
wanted to say. "We need to help him." He seemed to clutch Marcia's hand
before he let it go. He looked back at her one last time as he got into the
ambulance. "Don't take him," I said. "We don't even know his name." It
was too late. The ambulance left.
Daddy and Marcia came slowly back to the car, shoulders slumped,
eyes downcast. After they got in, Daddy explained, "The young man was a
passenger. He doesn't know what happened. One second they were driving
down the highway and the next, the truck was rolling. He thinks he was
thrown out the back window. He was lucky but his friend wasn't. The body
of the boy driving was slung over the back of the passenger seat so, at first, I
thought the other boy had driven. His neck was broken. His friend said that
he was only seventeen."
We all cried silently as we drove away. "What did he look like,
Daddy?" I asked.
"I couldn't see his face but his hair was cut short and was thick and
dark blonde like David's."
"Someone's brother," I thought. Someone's baby had died that day.
The atmosphere in the car was silent, filled with shock as we drove
away. I wondered what those boys' plans had been that day. How scary it
was to think that life, so precious, could be snuffed out in an instant. I looked
out the car window as we drove closer to Denver. There were so many
people with so many places to go. Did they know too how precious life was?
Somewhere people were at the zoo laughing, looking at the beautiful
animals. We decided to return another time to see the animals. Right then,
all our well-laid plans didn't seem so important.