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On what will turn out to be your last day alive, we are taking a leisurely drive in the countryside. We are navigating the winding roads leading up to Sauk Mountain, cruising slightly above speed limit in my silver '56 Corvaire convertible. The sun is streaming through the trees, playing in your windblown hair, making a bright gold corona around your face as you turn to look at me. You smile. I smile back. We are both wearing sunglasses. The breeze is soft and warm like breath. We are a happy couple. The cause of our fatal crash is not dramatic. The brakes do not fail, a child does not jump in front of our car. I am not even drunk. I’m just not paying attention. I’m laughing, I’m teasing you, playing with your hair, I’m holding a soda, car accidents happen to other people, we are invincible, and so I take a sharp right turn, and there is a car, and it hits you like the fist of God. We spin wildly. Tires explode. We are upside down. We crash through a road barrier and roll down the hillside, while the breeze blows and the birds sing overhead. In this lullaby of snapping branches and crunching glass, I go to sleep. When I wake up, you are dead. Your head is crushed. Your statuesque features are warped and flattened like a latex mask. Your blood is everywhere. Just like that. You are gone. Your body is not strong, it is not made of steel or encased in shatterproof Plexiglas. It is thin and soft and so vulnerable, a tiny flickering birthday candle surrounded by wild-eyed children with powerful lungs. And just like that, you are gone. Did you know that I had loved you for five years? Did you know how far I planned ahead? Before we were even formally introduced, I had a future for us. It was beautiful. There was no blood or broken bones anywhere, in that future in my head. We lived into our hundreds. Voices of reason tell me I need to go get help, call 911, get you taken to the morgue, the car to the scrapyard, pay fees and fines and arrange a funeral. I can’t. I just sit there in the car, cradling your blood-smeared head in my arms and sobbing. When I finally lay you down on the seat, dry my eyes, and look around, I find that over a hundred and fifty years have passed. The wreckage of our classic convertible is now full of leaves and rainwater, covered in moss. The grass has grown up over the windows. All that is left of your body is dust and a few bone fragments. I am in the middle of a forest. It is twilight, and hideously silent. No birds, no crickets. I walk for hours, and eventually come to an ancient gas station. It sits among the trees on the edge of the crumbled road, rusted and dead. The doors are boarded over. It is a tomb. On the corner there is a phone booth, and the thought of calling 911 returns to me. Emergency lights will color the funeral grayness of this forest. They will arrive quickly. They will whisk your remains away and heal you, they will take your dry, dusty fragments and reconstitute you, and you will be whole. I will drive you home, carefully. I will look each way at every intersection. I will stay at precisely the speed limit for the rest of our long lives. I will be careful now. We will never be hurt. I will be so fucking careful. I wrap my arms around the booth and lean my head against its front, eyes closed as if slow-dancing. I stand there weeping uncontrollably, and another twenty or thirty years pass. When it stops again, the grass has grown around my feet. I shake off a thick layer of moss and fallen leaves. For no reason, really, I pick up the phone, and put it to my ear. There is a dial tone. I don’t ask questions, I just begin to dial. My fingers move on their own, slow and unsteady, the nails caked with two centuries of dirt. I dial your apartment, wondering who lives there now in this distant age. I am shocked to hear the sound of your voice. You answer the phone. You simply say, “Hello?” I ask you if you are alive, and you say yes. I ask what year it is, and you respond with the year of our crash. I realize that this phone makes calls through time. We can go back. Mistakes can be un-made. “Who is this?” you ask, and I can hear my past self talking in the background. I ask to talk to him. You put him on, and he says hello. I tell him everything that happened, but he barely seems to be listening. His voice is thin and nasal, I want to punch him. I tell him about the crash, and he says yeah, ok, but he is clearly distracted by something. Reading a magazine, or browsing the internet. I scream at him to listen to me, but someone in the background starts talking to him. His voice becomes distant from the receiver, he asks them something, and he laughs, then returns to the phone and asks, “What were you saying?” I slam the phone down on the hook, and it breaks in my hand. The booth creaks, and collapses in a cloud of rust. I am left standing in the wreckage. Did you know that we were going to have our honeymoon in Thailand? I had saved enough money. When we drove out in the convertible, did you suspect that I had a ring in my pocket? Did you detect how nervous I was? The ancient gas pumps behind me begin to creak and rattle. Their wheels measure not money but years. They are spinning again. Where are we going, dear? It's a surprise. Oh, good. I love surprises.
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