Paralysed Forever

• Joanna Craddy, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2015

It all started on a Thursday.

I was walking down my street, walking to school. It was only down the road; I could see it. And then, a car. A red Mazda. Speeding, I remember it speeding. It swerved round the corner, and as I took a look at it, it was evident. The driver, he, she, IT was drunk. They looked at me with such determination, as I kept walking down the street, down the footpath. They... they swerved again. This time, onto the footpath.

And that's when it happened.

A big bang, a high pitched, blood curdling scream. Owners of houses rushing out in horror and shock. One man came out in a bath towel, another woman in an apron and floury hands. I could see a girl about my height, in my school uniform, running down the street, on the phone, talking fast and frantically. The sirens ran. I wanted to run, but I couldn't. I couldn't slip away into unconsciousness.

And then they arrived.

The police, ambulances, fire engines. The police lingered; it was their job to question the Mazda Man and give him a breathalyser test. The firemen and women rushed over to the Mazda and started rescuing him, checking at the same time for an innocent victim in the passenger seat or maybe a young child strapped into the back seat. The paramedics pulled a gurney out of an ambulance, and lifted me onto it. The girl who'd dialled triple 0 asked if she could come with me to hospital, said she knew my parents' number. I tried to say it was alright, but I couldn't.

It was then when I truly grasped what happened.

I was paralysed. Unable to move. Witnessing my surroundings, I thought how lucky I was before, how I took my mobile body for granted, which is what most people do. I'm paralysed forever, I thought. I'll never get to say I love you to my mum again, or have a fight with my sister. Nothing.

I'm paralysed. Nothing I can do about it.

I'm in the hands of the paramedics now.
They take me to hospital, the girl had persuaded the paramedics to let her come. At this point, as she was talking to my mother on the phone, I recognised her as a girl in my English class. I'm surprised she took action, being a shy girl. I'm still grasping the fact that I can't talk. It's... it's unbearable. I hate it, because I really am a talker. If I could talk, I would talk the faces off those paramedics. But I can't. I won't. I don't. I'm paralysed forever, I thought.

I'll fight to make that statement false.