Trembling With Fear 01/19/2020

A Rain-Faded Photograph by DJ Tyrer

He felt awful. He felt as if there were something crawling about in his guts, gnawing at him from within. Guilt.

John glanced at his speed, keeping it low. He’d been driving this route to and from work for years, knew it by heart. Maybe that was the problem. He’d grown careless, like disrespecting a lover whose presence has grown too familiar. This was his first day back along this road in a month. He’d been taking taxis, but the toll on his wallet was growing too high and the counsellor had said he needed to confront his fear.

“Get back on the horse.” As if you could compare what had happened with taking a tumble!

“I never should have listened,” he told the empty car, but he knew he hadn’t had much choice.

Then, he was turning the corner and he felt a surge of panic. His foot pushed down on the brake pedal and the car slowed to a crawl. The twin beams of the headlights caressed their way across the tarmac and along the grassy verge until he saw it: A pile of bouquets and wreaths.

This was where it had happened.

He steered onto the roadside a little way past the mound of flowers and engaged the handbrake.

He sat breathing deeply for a while, trying to regain a little composure.

John considered phoning work to tell them he’d be late.

“Screw ’em.”

He released his seatbelt, then opened the door and slowly levered himself out.

The morning air was chill and damp. The road in front of him sparkled under the lights of his car. Behind, the hazard lights sent odd shadows flickering across the scene. There was just enough light to make out where the memorial lay.

Slowly, he walked towards it. He should’ve brought something. Or, would that have been construed as offensive? He had no idea how you were supposed to act when you took a life. Careless driving, they’d called it. His lawyer had argued it down to some points on his license and a fine. But, fancy words couldn’t heal the ache he felt.

The woman had been little more than a blur when he’d skidded round the corner and a lifeless sack of flesh when he’d stared back at her while a passerby screamed into their phone for an ambulance. Then, he’d read the newspaper report, a tiny article that barely seemed sufficient for the enormity of what had happened, and had realised she was a wife and a mother. He felt sick at the thought.

He approached the makeshift memorial. A bunch of withered flowers was tied to a lamppost with a rain-faded photograph. The lamp was as dead as the woman. Around it, more flowers were gathered. Some had been blown away down the road. He started gathering them and returned them to their proper place. It was a gesture he felt compelled to make, yet was a hollow one.

Nothing he could do could undo what he’d done. He growled at his impotence, the injustice of it all.

If only…

There was no point. Ifs were useless.

He turned away and started to walk back towards his car, but the soft sound of a rustle behind him made him halt.

There was no breeze.

John turned. He couldn’t see anyone in the darkness. He’d half-expected to see someone there on the verge, brushing against the bushes that framed it; had dreaded it, in case it were a friend or relative come to lay another wreath, someone who might recognise him. But, there was no-one there. Nor was there the spooky glow of a cat’s or fox’s eyes. There was nothing that might have made the sound in sight.

And, there was no breeze.

He almost turned away, only he heard the sound again. It had come from the piled-up flowers. He looked at them; he could see they were moving, shifting. He shivered.

There was no breeze.

As he watched, the wreaths and bouquets seemed to fall upwards from the bottom of the pile to the top. The pile was growing taller and slimmer and, he realised, seemed to be taking on a shape reminiscent of a person.

John couldn’t believe what he was seeing and wanted to turn away, run back to his car. But, a horrified fascination compelled him to keep watching until the figure of a woman composed of flowers stood before him. There was a head, but no features he could discern, save those of a rain-faded photograph that perched somehow at the centre of where a face should have been.

The figure took a step towards him, faltering and horribly loose.

John gave a scream and turned to run.

Headlights flashed around the corner and seemed to transfix him with their beams.

Hands that were gentle and soft, yet had a grip like steel, seized him by the elbows and thrust him forward, out into the road.

A car veered towards him. Light blinded him.

In that second, John realised that, while there was nothing he could do to change things, there was, perhaps a sacrifice that might balance the books.

He felt himself flying.