At wit's end

        She was at the end of her emotional rope. At wit’s end. She was emotionally tired and her body knew it. But there seemed to be a faint glimmer of love and hope. It was the small speck of light sailors could see through the cold and thick fog just before declaring their journey an utter waste. She almost didn’t care to pursue it, but nearly faded memories of a once happy marriage kept that small speck of hope alive. It was the final straw.
         She had done it before and decided to do it again. She would do it tonight. She grabbed the car keys from the kitchen counter and walked by the clock, which displayed fifteen minutes after two o’clock in the morning. She walked into the bedroom to retrieve her slippers and stepped outside into the cold, humid air. The cold air was the least of her problems and didn’t really faze her. She made her way to the beat up car wasting away on the driveway and unlocked it hopping onto the front seat. The car started and the engine made a high pitched squeak from a nearly wasted drive belt. She couldn’t really care less if the engine woke any neighbors up. She wasn’t in the mood. The car slowly made its way down the street and toward the other part of town.
         The streets were empty except for a few occasional vehicles heading in various directions. After nearly fifteen minutes of driving, the engine had warmed up and the vents were blowing out warm air. She turned onto the State Road that led to the industrial part of town near the railroad station. Off in the distance a small pair of headlights made its way in the opposite direction. She drove slowly along the road lined with power lines to her right and empty fields of weeds and brush on both sides. The headlights opposite her became bigger and further apart and to avoid being blinded by the car’s lights, she focused on the dotted yellow line. The approaching car began drifting to her side of the road but slowly straightened itself out. She suddenly felt panicked. She slowed down a little more and drifted to the outside of her lane. With the distance between the two quickly diminishing, the car again drifted toward her but didn’t have time to correct itself.
         She closed her eyes and the pain was quick, sharp and then over. She was gone.
         The cold, humid night air was all that accompanied the two cars now crashed against the power pole.
         Her pain was gone and she looked around at the wreckage. What a terrible sight. She looked down into the car and saw her limp, lifeless body. She recognized the tired, defeated woman lying against the window. She turned to the other car and moved toward it for a closer look. She saw a body sitting in the front seat hunched up against the steering wheel. Stepping closer to the door she got a closer look at the passed out man. Her eyes opened wide as she stare at her husband’s bloody, bruised face. He had left the bar earlier than usual but was obviously still drunk. And with no one around to see what happened, or get him to the hospital, he would die before morning.