Drops of Life

         He could hear the ticking of the hot engine cooling. Broken shards of glass, twisted bits of metal, and various other bits of detritus from the crash surrounded him. The blood dripping from his hand and nose were mixing with the gasoline, oil, and coolant, as well as everything else that was sprayed about as the car had flipped and rolled. How did he end up like this? Trying not to close his eyes, he struggled to remember the night's events.

         He had left earlier that evening, his mom shouting some muffled and half-heard warning as he ran to his car, eager to get to the party. He left his mother with the assurances that there would be no drinking or anything else at the party, which was, of course a lie. This was his Senior class party, the last blast of the year, and they were going to be "partying hardcore". While he was pretty sure there'd be no drugs, he knew for sure there'd be alcohol, and plenty of it.

         Though the party was starting right about when he had arrived, it was clear that many of the guests and already been drinking. So he started as soon as he got there. The beer went down easy, but his first taste of vodka went down hard. He hated the burn in his throat and he started to cough. His buddies then started to ease him into the harder stuff by spiking his beer, until it was almost pure vodka, scotch, whiskey... whatever they had lying around. He stopped noticing anything but the euphoric feeling of the alcohol running through his veins.

         When he looked at his watch some time later, he freaked out when he saw it was 2 AM. He told his mother he'd be home at midnight! He muttered a goodbye to his friends, who were all too inebriated to care, and stumbled out to his car. He should have known that he was in no shape to drive when he fell at least 3 times on the way to his car and it took him 10 minutes to get his keys in the ignition. But he was feeling the fear of his mother's wrath, and this compelled him to get home as quick as he could.

         He put his foot to the floor, and spun off down the dark, back-country road off of which the house the party was at was located. He found it hard to focus on the road, but he judged that he was keeping good control of the car. He had just seen the lights from the party fade from view in his rearview mirror when the first major bend in the road caught him by surprise, before he slammed on the brakes in a futile attempt to slow the car, he glanced at the speedometer, only to find the needle burried at well past 120 miles per hour. The car hit the edge of the curve, which was banked to allow a smoother corner, and went airborne for about 150 feet before it landed in the freshly plowed field. As the car landed, he slammed his face into the airbag, which knocked him out cold. The car began to flip, roll, and tumble for another 400 feet, and would have gone farther had it not clipped a tractor that was sitting in the field, bending the whole chassis nearly in half. The car ended up, lying on what was left of the roof, that had miraculously kept him inside the car, though he had negleted, in his stupor, to fasten his seat belt. Unfortunately, however, a shaft had broken loose from the tractor as the car had clipped it, and had impaled the young driver through the abdomen, just below his sternum. The shaft penetrated his liver, esophagus, and partially severing his aorta before shattering his spine.

         When he woke up, he was numb, and already beginning to shiver from shock and the loss of blood. Now, several minutes had passed by, and he had heard, nor seen anyone. His sight started to cloud as he watched drops of life mixing with the earth, regretting the loss of everthing he would never get to know. He finally gave into the urge to close his eyes, drops of blood mingling with everything on the ground. He didn't wait long enough to hear the sirens.