Stomping on Eggshells

         No one wakes up in the morning expecting to die. I know I certainly didn’t. If everyone woke up knowing what was to come that day, people would walk on eggshells trying to prevent it, It was snowing when I got into my car, coffee in hand. I remember thinking how beautiful it was, the first snow of the year. It kept snowing on the way to the preschool where I work. I was one my second cup of coffee that morning, and I was still exhausted. Our little town only has one intersection, and no cars were out that morning, so I didn’t give a second thought to paying attention to the light. My fiancé is the only police officer in town, I think I could get myself out of a ticket. I pulled out slowly, my car was being just as grogy as I felt, it stopped right in the middle of the intersection and I couldn’t get it to start. I should have been more freaked out, but I wasn’t. I didn’t even get out of the car, I just called my fiancé and asked him to get me. Then I don’t even really know why, but I drifted off. I only closed my eyes for a second, but that was enough for a giant truck, the kind that haul food to grocery stores, to speed into the intersection. I opened my eyes right as the headlights flashed golden in my windows.
         I was thrown out the front window, and the phrase “my life flashed before my eyes” made sense to me then. I saw Will, the man eye loved, in a year on what would have been our wedding day. I imagined kissing him at the altar, throwing my bouquet. I saw the day I would finally graduate with my Ph.D. in children’s phycology. I saw all the people I wanted to help, all the people I’d never be able to help now. I saw my children, the huge family Will and I wanted. They had my brown ringlets, and his freckles and deep blue eyes. The next fifty years played in my mind like one giant movie. Yet it only lasted one second. The last thing I remember was being close enough to my car to see the explosion, but far away enough not to feel it.  I heard sirens from police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks, but above them out was a voice screaming my name. Will. I saw the once beautiful white snow around me tinted with red blood, and then I was gone.