Early one Wednesday morning,
Andrew came to a stop at the traffic light. the light had just turned orange, that meant that he could go on if he wanted to. but he decided to come to a complete standstill. There was no rush after all. he had more than enough time to get to work. the drive was about thirty minutes, but at half past six in the morning it was only about 20.
Andrew preferred to leave early for work, as these days people had seemed to be in a rush to get to wherever they needed to be.
This morning it was no different.
As the light went green, Andrew, put his white BMW into first gear and slowly pulled away. the car behind him was having no of that. a middle-aged man in a blue ford ranger, pulled to the left and drove on as fast as he could. He was soon followed by an grey Audi.
A couple hundred meters on, as he got into 4th then 5th gear, he spotted a truck joining the left lane, and it was going way to fast. The back of the truck was starting to sway from left to right, and from right to left. it looked as if the truck could turn over at any moment. So, he decided to drastically slow his car down, as he was coming up to a bend and with the truck driver driving that erratically he knew it could end up in being a huge accident.
One that he didn’t want any part of.
So, he put is left indicator on, checked is left and rear-view mirror, once he saw that it was safe for him to turn left he did so.
Andrew was happy now, he could drive at a speed that was safe for him, he turned up the radio and started to cruise along.
He prayed that the truck driver would slow down, that load could do some serious damage to a lot of innocent people.
After about a kilometer, a man was running up the road, he was wearing a red shirt with black shorts, he had a shocked look on his face. The man was waving his arms trying to get Andrew to slow down.
Andrew figured it was that truck driver who was driving so erratically.
As he got closer to the man with the red shirt, Andrew rolled down his window and asked him what is going on.
“Hey, what happened?”
“There has been a massive accident” The man in the red shirt replied.
“About four cars are involved”
“Did a truck crash into them” Andrew asked
“No, not at all. this guy in a ford ranger crashed into a Honda civic. The other 2 cars where just caught up in it”
“what’s your name?”
“It’s Brent”
“Brent, my names Andrew. Could you please keep on trying to get people to stop. We can’t have this getting any worse, yea”
Brent, understood. He had already seen the accident, so he knew he had to get the cars ahead to come to a complete standstill.
Andrew put his hazards on, switched the car off and started to run down towards the accident.
As he got there, he could see the ford ranger and a Honda civic. the Honda didn’t look to be in good shape.
People from the opposite side of the road had started making there way to the accident.
The driver of the ford was still inside.
Two guys from the crowd were trying to get him out. while another group of people were checking on the people in the Honda.
The two guys managed to get him out. and he didn’t seem too hurt, by some miracle he could stand on his own.
One of the guys who helped him out, asked him what happened.
But the man didn’t answer him. So Andrew walked up closer to him to get a good look at him.
Again the man asked him.
“Look at what you have done, you killed someone, answer me”
As he got closer to the man. he started to sway a bit. And his eyes where red, his breathe smelt like whiskey.
Andrew pointed to the men who helped him out of the ford.
“You two, keep an eye on this drunk. He has been drinking, don’t let him out of your sight. You hear me”
“You got it” said the man.
Andrew then pointed to a lady wearing a white shirt, with blue jeans.
“What’s your name?”
“Its Mandy” she replied.
“Mandy can you do me a favor and call an ambulance and tell them there has been an accident, after you have done that, call the cops”
while Andrew walked over to the front, he saw a man. he was sitting on the pavement holding his daughter.
He must have been in one of the other cars involved in the accident, because both of them didn’t show any signs of serious injury. the girl was crying, while he was just holding her, telling her that its going to be ok.
Andrew turned around to the right, to where the white Honda Civic had come to a stop.
A woman who looked to be in her late thirties was sitting down, holding a young boy, he looked to be about 9 or 10 years old.
Andrew stood their frozen.
The boy was lying motionless in his mothers arm’s.
Just a few minutes earlier, this young boy was alive in this very car. Only for his life to be taken away by a man that should have never been driving in the first place.
All Andrew wanted to do was to go up to that man and just lay into him. Punch him until he couldn’t feel anything.
But he knew he couldn’t do that. he would get his punishment soon enough, when the cops arrive. And when he starts to become sober, this is going to hit him like a ton a brick’s.
“My sweet boy, is dead, why have you done this to me” the mother said, with tears coming down.
Andrew looked up at the windscreen and it was shattered, their was a big hole in it. the young boy must have gone straight through it.
One week later.
The local community had rallied around the Georgia family, who had lost their son Mike in that dreadful accident. People from all walks of life had donated whatever they could to help. From money, to food, you name it.
The local fire chief had suggested that we write messages of hope to the family. telling the that we are thinking about them, we are there for them, we love them.
Just something to help them get through this.
Conny from the library had managed to get a hold of a poster, it was about two meters wide and two meters long.
Everyone took their turns writing something down.
When it was Andrew’s turn to write something, he didn’t know what to say to the Georgia family.
He figured when he had the pen in his hand, that it would just come to him.
He bent down and started to write. but when he saw what he wrote. those words didn’t make any sense to him. he had written them, but didn’t know how why he had written something so specific.
The words that he wrote said I am Ok.
Andrew called his friend Lucy to come over and take a look. she understood things like this.
When she saw those words, she immediately started to smile.
“Lucy, why are you smiling?”
“The boy is telling us, he is ok”
after a couple of minutes, Andrew decided that he had to go over and tell the Maria, what her son had just told him. it sounded crazy as hell, but with everything that just happened this past week. maybe it wasn’t so crazy?
After telling Maria, she burst out into tears, although this time, those tears were tears of joy. after being so sad since the accident, her heart was at peace.
Now she could move on…