Head-On
Jan Stinchcomb


 
You can’t prepare for this. The other guy is asleep, so it’s all on you, on your spine and your clenched fingers. The moment of impact lasts forever and the compression of your vertebrae overwhelms everything, even the sound of metal crunching, even your scream. Your old sedan is finished. The child beside you used to get her diapers changed in the roomy trunk, but now nothing is working, not your door, because the wheel itself has been pushed into the frame, and not your brain, which is doing the best it can, flooding with adrenaline to speed you out of here. Now you are wandering around outside as people try to help: they tell you to get your documents together, take lots of pictures, drink this bottle of water. They want you to approach him, the other driver, this person who’s asleep. Later you’ll learn that his car is full of needles and bloody cotton balls and burnt-up soda cans, as well as prescriptions that are supposed to help him stay on this earth with everyone else, but he can’t. Already on probation for possession, he’ll skip bail and become a fugitive. This is your only chance to speak to him. To show him your face. To ask him what’s up. But something holds you back. You don’t want any further contact. The collision was enough, and so you stand under the endless sun, your daughter beside you, and you let him sleep.









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About the Author: Jan Stinchcomb is the author of The Blood Trail (forthcoming from Red Bird Chapbooks). Her stories have appeared in Gone Lawn, Whiskey Paper, Atticus Review and Monkeybicycle, among other places. She is featured in The Best Small Fictions 2018 and is a reader for Paper Darts. Currently living in Southern California with her husband and children, she can be found at janstinchcomb.com or on Twitter @janstinchcomb.
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