I Remember...

Ruth Ayers from http://inspiringreaderswriters.blogspot.com had her first guest blogger, Penny Kittle. Ruth and Penny gave a challenge to write something starting with the two words, "I remember." This is a Graves challenge as well. Here it goes:

I remember a cold, January, pre-evening storm that left the streets of Fort Wayne slick, icy, and treacherous. I remember standing up in the front seat of my mother's green, 1970's Oldsmobile. This car was not built for comfort. It had leather seats that in the summer made your legs stick like sticky glue. It had hard parts that gave it an industrial feel. It was never soft, or inviting. In my memory I remember hearing her words, "Sarah, you need to stay in your seatbelt. The roads are dangerous, you could get hurt." As we drive down the street we follow a semi truck that is lost and driving at a snail's pace through a residential neighborhood. I know now that he is not supposed to be driving on this piece of road.

Up ahead I can see boys, around 8 and 10. One is wearing a blue snowsuit and a bright, red, knit hat. They have spent their snowday off of school sledding, building snowforts, and having snowball fights. They are tired of the day and have exhausted all that they are allowed to do. Now they have turned to the things they are not supposed to do. This action of throwing snowballs at drivers passing by is very dangerous. They know they are not supposed to do this because after each throw they resume a hiding place so as not to be caught. Even though they know this could bring them trouble they still embark upon the activity because they are bored and they are curious about what could happen. As the semi truck in front of us stomps on his brakes my mother is still beckoning for me to sit down, and buckle up. She does not see the truck stop.

All that I remember is the steel, unbending, T on the back bumper of the truck as we slam into its back end. When my eyes open to the conscious world I am no longer in my former standing position. Now I am crammed under the front seat but in the back of the car. I can hear my mother, is she crying? What is she saying? Is that my name? "Mommy?!" Was that my voice? Did I scream it out like that? I slowly untwist my legs that are mangled under the seat and lift myself over and slide up close to my mother. Why is she just laying there, and why is she bleeding?

Fear slides up my throat as I hear, and see, the sirens flash. There are strangers poking and prodding me. Where are they taking my mother? They are asking me all sorts of questions. What is your name? Where do you live? How old are you? Does anything hurt? I cannot answer. I am not allowed to talk them. Besides, the fear has gripped me into silence. Look at all the lights on the top of the ambulance. Am I riding in an ambulance? These are the incoherent thoughts that race through my little, 5 year old, mind.

Somebody please call my father, my mother is hurt.