Something Was Wrong

OK, from the beginning. It seems like it was so long ago.

It started with the accident. The other guy wasn’t looking, and he blew right through the light and slammed into my car. My life didn’t flash before my eyes; it was just like everything stopped, all at once, all of a sudden. For a while, until the cop pulled me out, I thought I was dead. They rushed me to the hospital, and I was more shaken up than anything, but, God, was I shaken up.

They let me go just a few hours later. Other than the gash on my head, which they’d bandaged up, I was OK. I was OK. But I felt like something was wrong.

There was a woman walking down the road, and I stopped her and asked for the time.

The moment she saw me, she screamed and ran.

The next person I stopped did the same thing.

Was there something wrong with me? Was the wound bleeding or something? Was… Wait. What if I…

This horrible thought grabbed hold of my mind, and it wouldn’t go. I kept thinking of the car accident, and what had happened, and what I had thought. I kept thinking of the people who had run away from me, screaming.

I ran home. There was a hearse parked in front.

That’s it, of course. It had to be, of course. For some reason I—whatever I was now—hadn’t accepted it, hadn’t realized it, but…

Someone ran out of the house next door. She saw me, and her jaw dropped.

I said, “Don’t be frightened. I’m not trying to scare you, it’s just that for some reason my soul can’t…”

She said, “Mr. Peters? Mr. Peters? Where—where have you been? Your wife…”

“What?”

“There was an accident. She’s dead.”

She saw something behind me, her eyes grew wide, and she screamed.

I turned around to see my wife standing there. Geez. There was nothing wrong with me at all. It was just my wife following me home from the hospital.

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Credits