The End

The slip road proved as quiet as the motorway. The fatal impact had shaken soul from body and left the world in limbo.

Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. No heat to engines, or flutter of leaves. No sirens, at sea with only the waves of remembered noise and action. Hers was a life passed. For all her steps, there was no further journey, nothing to be gained. She turned back. To car and corpse. Hers. Derek looked dead, hard to tell as he was stuck in the moment like a marionette with strings cut.

The journey prior to impact had offered laughter and love, new beginnings. How ironic. Now for Derek, she prayed, he would move onto heartbreak, home, continuing. No more death here.

The worse fear, that he moved in the seconds ahead of her. Caught in similar limbo, with only her obvious corpse and strangers for company. In a world as stopped as this.

Did he cry? Did he scream? Was she for him the puzzled puppet? The marionette torn through windscreen.

If she stood very still, as still as scene, would she hear him?


copyright Catherine J Gardner 2007