The Accident

She had been miserable, but the days had passed and now her elbows bent and her knees bent and her skin was healing over. There were patches of scabs still that she tried to resist picking at, and she watched the skin change colors as the bruises deepened and then faded. She got out of bed for the first time aside from brief trips to the bathroom in about a week and her legs felt weak and shook a little as she stood. But the tremor disappeared as she walked around the room. She was tired of her view from the bed and she stood by the window for several moments looking out over the trees. She could just see the ocean through the branches since the leaves had started to fall. She loved winter because it changed her view entirely and she almost had a full view of the beach a few blocks away. But in the spring when the trees leafed out she lost her view and could hardly even see the sky as it was sheltered by the maple tree right outside of her window. Standing wasn’t comfortable so she went into the kitchen to make tea.

Her friend had been coming over every day to cook and help her to the bathroom. But she had rung her friend this morning and said she could take care of herself now. She didn’t like to ask for help, but it had been necessary. She had ignored the mail in hopes of not thinking about the legal ramifications of the previous week, but she could pretend no longer. Denial had served her throughout the week though, except in her dreams where she relived the accident over and over again. She hardly remembered what had happened now though. She remembered a man with a full beard and piercing olive green eyes. She remembered metal scraping and the flicker of flames out of the corner of her eye. And she remembered the view of the trees from upside down, and the surprise at how foreign the world looked from a different angle.

She had made the front page of the newspaper and had received cards and flowers and small gifts that remained unwrapped on the kitchen table. Her car had been totaled and the bearded man’s truck had burst into flames, but he had remained miraculously unscathed. But the caged bird in his backseat that was on the way to the vet had gone up in flames with the truck and the man had repeated over and over again the last caw he had heard from the colorful toucan. He cried about his bird, but not about his truck. He said a deer had leapt into the road and his brakes had screamed into the pavement. She didn’t remember a deer. He had sent her a gift but it was with the others. She didn’t want to open it. She had lost nothing important in her car, but her palms were shredded and the bruise around her eye looked like the result of an abusive relationship. She thought of the toucan and wondered whether the colors of its feathers looked like dancing flames. She hoped it had died quickly, instead of smoldering slowly trapped behind bars.

The bearded man was supposed to visit her today. She knew he felt guilty that she had been so beat up and he hadn’t. But she was glad that he hadn’t gone up in flames as well, a man and his bird burning together, skin and feathers melting into oblivion. She wondered what burning feathers smelled like, and if it was anything like burning hair which she had discovered the smell of when she tried to straighten her hair with an iron when she was about seven years old. That had been a failed experiment. Her mom had screamed at her, and then took scissors to her head and cut off all of her hair until there was only an inch left. She had kept her hair short ever since to spite her mother since she knew her mother envisioned having a beautiful daughter with long curly hair and graceful hands that stroked the pearly white piano keys. She never learned to play the piano and her hands were not graceful.

Her knees buckled and she hobbled over to the kitchen table and sat down. The room was cold and she hugged herself with her arms wrapped around her shoulders for a moment. She looked at the gifts on the table and moved them aside. She lay her head down on her arms and fingered the bristle of her hair that was growing long enough to flop over instead of standing straight up. The kitchen looked larger from her horizontal perspective and the fridge seemed so far away. But with the grumble of her stomach she rose and looked for the peanut butter. She made a sandwich with honey and raisins and brought it back to her bed to eat. Her bed felt safe and familiar whereas the rest of her apartment felt oddly distant and cold. Her bedroom was bright and sunny compared to the dark kitchen, and felt warmer as she climbed into bed. She could feel the stretch of new skin across her knees and elbows and she gently fingered the bruises to see if they still hurt. They did, but less than they had before.

Her phone rang and it was the bearded man whose name she couldn’t remember, even after he said it again over the phone. He asked when a good time to visit would be, and she couldn’t think of any good time, but said early afternoon would work. She gave him directions and hung up. She finished her sandwich and lay back against the pillows watching the leaves flutter in the late fall breeze. She pulled the covers up to her chin and dosed off. She dreamt of a camel with pearls around his neck and water flowing out of his mouth. She was drinking the water and splashing it over her face. She could feel the salt crystals of her sweat flow off of her chin and into the sand that was hot from the sun. When she awoke her hair and shirt were damp from sweat. She smoothed her hair back and thought about the view of trees from upside down. She heard a crow outside but by the time she got to the window it had flown away.

She slowly dressed and rinsed her face in preparation for the bearded man’s visit. He had seemed nice over the phone, but she was nervous about having company, especially since she still looked so battered. He arrived with flowers in his hand, and she accepted them with slightly raised eyebrows. She offered him a chair and a cup of tea which he accepted, tilting the chair at an angle to the table so he could rest an ankle on his knee. His eyes were smiling and kind, but also full of sympathy. He asked how she was doing. She was momentarily distracted by trying to remember his name, and then answered that she was fine. She sat down across the table from him and leaned on her elbows with her mug of mint tea in her hands. The sharp scent filled her nostrils as she breathed in deeply, and her face felt damp from the steam. She apologized for the loss of his bird. He looked down at his lap for a moment and then back at her face and said thank you. His smiling eyes faded into sadness and remembrance. They talked about the accident, and he filled her in on the details that she didn’t remember. But their conversation was factual and lacked emotion as if they were already too distanced from it to even remember that they were both there. It was as if they were talking about an accident that they had read about in the newspaper, something that had happened to someone else. It felt easier that way. When she asked him about his interest in birds he became animated and spoke with gestures, and leaning in towards her, she could smell mint on his breath from the tea. His eyes were smiling again.

He left a little while later. She was glad he had come by after all. After he left she put the flowers he had brought, pansies that looked freshly cut from his garden, into a small ceramic vase and brought them into her bedroom where they fit nicely on her bedside table. She leaned over the smell them, but they hardly had a scent. She thought about the bearded man’s smiling eyes, and wondered if her eyes ever looked like that, so shiny and sparkling, as if they knew something that no one else knew, a hidden well of happiness.

She lay down on her bed facing the bouquet of pansies and studied their dark centers that flared out into brilliant color. She closed her eyes and quickly fell asleep. She dreamt of the crow that had cawed outside of her window. It was sitting on a branch watching over her. But after a moment it dipped into the air and as it flew away its inky black feathers turned to shocking reds and oranges and blues and it cawed like the toucan had in the burning truck, but with less desperation. It circled several times through the sky above her bedroom and then flew off into the distance until it was nothing but a black dot against the graying horizon.