Fluid Memories

• Jack Milburn, Grade 9, Burnside State High School
• Short Story
• 2014

Excellence Award in the 'The Text Generation 2014' competition

It all happened in a split second.
The car had crashed.
I was in the driver’s seat looking around in agony.
The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a smashed wind screen and a lake at the bottom of a steep decline. The car was on two wheels, bumped up onto a rock. My legs were in severe pain from the weight of the dash board crushing my thighs. There was a large gash down the right side of my torso that must have resulted from the steel of the buckled door. My left arm was up on the wrecked console. I suspected my forearm was broken.
I began to look around. I saw in the front seat beside me a girl. A friend. Anna. She lay motionless with her head against the splintered passenger window. Blood was smeared across her face. I tried to turn and examine the misshapen door, but I was in too much pain.
I didn’t know what to do.
I lay there thinking about the things I wanted in my life. I thought about going to university, travelling, having a family, finding someone to love and spend the rest of my life with. I thought of my parents and telling them how sorry I was about this horrible accident.
I felt my eyes slowly close. I can’t remember what happened after that.
When I came to, I was achingly sore and increasingly worried. I looked at the digital clock on the crumpled, muddied dash board. I must have been unconscious for about an hour. I desperately tried to clear my head and deal with the pain. Suddenly, I felt the car starting to slip off the rock towards the river below. I heard the sharp, grating, piercing sound of the metal under carriage scratching and scraping across the rock. The car lurched free with an abrupt jolt and gathered momentum, slipping towards the freezing, black water.
Fear engulfed me. I raised my bloodied, broken arms to protect my face just as the car unexpectedly fastened once more. The back wheels had caught in a rocky crevice. We were about ten meters from the river now. I looked out my window and saw silvery reflections of the moon shinning on the lake. I thought to myself, “Is this it? Is this where I die?”
To my absolute horror, the car starting slipping again, gradually giving way, moving down the slope. Our dark watery grave loomed large through the windscreen. We were about to plunge to our deaths when, without warning, the image on the screen flickered and bright florescent light flooded the lecture room.
One hundred emotional teenagers looked at me with nervous, questioning eyes. Glancing around the room at the youthful, inexperienced drivers before me, I uttered a single sentence, “This is the reality of drink driving.”
With that opening line, I continued to deliver what I hoped would be a life saving lecture.