Nothing But Stars

The first thing he remembered -- after the worst of it was over -- were the stars. Looking to the heavens, incandescent bodies glimmered and winked at him from a lush canvas of indigo: bejeweled timekeepers, watchers of the universe, billions of light years away. Oh my God, he thought, his eyes overflowing with the splendor of diamonds and sapphires suspended in space. They’re beautiful.

Nothing but stars, so many of them, infinite and eternal. Dazzling gems spilled upon velvet, blushing flirts, seducing him from celestial thrones. If only he could touch one, feel it in his hand, share in its luminosity. He reached for one in particular, a great and pulsating jewel, just to see if he could. Movement was not difficult, just…awkward. He could feel gravity’s weight but it acted upon him as if from every direction possible: drawing his hand to where he wanted it to go yet still trying to hold it in place. Beautiful, he thought once again, reaching for something he was not yet prepared to touch.

An elusive stillness surrounded him, not real silence but rather a low, rushing pulse: a heartbeat; a sound he imagined the unborn hear within their mother’s womb. It was the sound of sanctuary. He could not recall how he had found his way into such a surreal and tranquil setting and at that moment, he did not care. He believed he had lost consciousness -- was quite sure of it in fact -- and was now just coming to, lost somewhere between awareness and circumstance.

His efforts to grasp the heavens continued and for one splendid moment he swore he had actually touched the star he sought: not that he had reached it really, but more like it had reached him.

This novel world, this marvelous environment beckoned but for one instant when he afforded himself a single distraction: a different sort of light, one that was artificial and unnatural. The night sky began to flicker in reds and blues and in turning his attention his ears were filled with something other than the satisfying whoosh he found so comforting. Unrecognizable and unpleasant, these intrusive sights and sounds rudely drew his attention even further away from the wondrous ambiance above him and back down to the lonely frozen earth on which he lay.

The ground was icy cold though he was far too numb to recognize it. As reality domesticated his senses the stars above him began to lose their magic and suddenly they were nothing more than the cold distant bodies he would too easily ignore on any other night. The light of his own world filled his bleary eyes and as he focused them downward the shadows yielded and his vision began to clear. He did not like what he saw.

Before him he could barely make out a gapping fissure of twisted metal: torn and fractured beams of steel snarling and lashing out at him like some dreadful monster. Behind this disarray the red and blue lights -- the monsters terrible eyes -- grew larger and more sinister in rhythmic, orchestrated winks. As the radiance of colored light intensified, so too did that awful noise. Wailing and screaming, jarring his senses further into focus, he slowly recognized the morose cry of approaching emergency vehicles.

Orientation suddenly felt crucial. His eyes darted wildly about, anxiously scanning the remainder of his surroundings. The ground was powdered lightly with a fresh dusting of snow and he seemed to be in some sort of depression. Shallow walls of earth encompassed him and in one paralyzing thought he imagined he might be entombed.

Stricken with terror, unable to obey his brain’s demand to rise and scramble from his supposed grave, he returned his attention to the mangled catastrophe above him and with clearing eyes and mind, he forced himself, for his own sanities sake, to acknowledge that it was not a monster at all but rather a roadside guardrail (or a former one at that) eviscerated violently by something large; but what, he could not tell. Faculties gathering but still awash with fear, he began to identify from above him the droning engines of heavy equipment, voices and shouts and the intermittent squawking of police radios. The lights behind the wounded guardrail were quite intense now casting long menacing shadows into his new and frightening world.

But it was what he could not see, nor remember, that was far more terrifying.

On the highway above him, passed the broken guardrail and beyond his view, emergency personnel had begun arriving upon the most horrific display of carnage any one of them had ever had the misfortune of bearing witness to: nineteen passenger vehicles, six tractor trailers and one petroleum truck, sprawled across the frozen highway in a chaotic mess of metal, rubber, glass and flame. Amid the wreckage lay fifty-three souls: some still living, most already dead.

In the mayhem, not one responder had thought to investigate the shattered guardrail or what lay in the embankment beneath. Down there, a man had begun calling franticly for help from what he now mercifully realized was not a grave at all but simply a shallow trench.

“Help me! Please!” he cried from his lonely ditch, his would be tomb. “Can anybody hear me?” But they could not. How could they; he could barely hear himself.

For the first time since trying to reach for the star, he attempted to move, his body feeling as if it were frozen to the frigid earth. Cautiously, he peeled his body from the icy ground, a snake shedding its dead skin, and pushed himself upward. Crawling from the snowy ditch felt clumsy and odd, like a baby taking its first lumbering steps. To his amazement he felt no pain (he in fact felt nothing at all). Assessing his body he appeared, to himself at least, to be uninjured.

So, this is what shock feels like, he thought, actually welcoming the numbness, all the while fearing that at any moment his faculties would return, racking his body and mind with the intolerable pain presently being overridden by the graciousness of fight or flight.

He glanced up the embankment and through that gaping hole in the guardrail, spilling over with lights and noise. Instinct told him that, despite his better judgment, that was where he must go if he was to free himself of this precarious situation -- whatever this situation actually was. With bones of rubber and joints overflowing with glue he began an ungainly yet careful ascension of the steep and rocky gradient, working steadily (and in slow motion) towards the guardrails gnarly wound. Something big sure broke through that all right, he thought. Something big indeed. Something like a…

…a car.

Where is my car? He suddenly considered that he might have been driving before all this happened. Where was I going? That did not seem important but he was almost sure that he had been driving. And singing. Yes, he had been singing as well; out loud to the radio, he was definitely sure of that. Singing real loud, the way you do when you’re all alone in the car and no one is around to make fun except maybe that guy in the car next to you but who cares what he thinks. No one is around to make fun of you except that guy and…

…and who?

Was I alone?

He paused. Something was missing. Someone was missing.

For the first time since this absurd situation had begun he turned to look in the one direction he hadn’t: behind him. Looking behind him was like looking into the past. And why was the past (especially the recent past) something he feared deeply?

He closed his eyes making the 180-degree turn and opened them warily only when facing squarely down the embankment. Resting at the bottom like some dead solider was the traumatized remains of a four-door sedan -- his four-door sedan. Barely recognizable, it lay on its side: lifeless, passenger side up, propped against a splintered tree. The windows were little more than a tangled spider web of busted glass; every visible inch of metal was either dented, punctured or ripped clean from the automobiles broken bones.

He held a tremulous hand over a tremulous mouth, agape with shock, wondering by what grace of God had he been spared from such a catastrophe. Surely no one could have walked away from such a disaster; but here he was, living proof. Once more he scrutinized his body. Inexplicably he seemed completely uninjured. His hand returned to his mouth as the sight of the corpse that was once his car flooded his mind with cruel and painful memory.

He had been driving and it was cold. It had rained lightly most of the day but the setting sun had cooled things down considerably, glazing the roadways with a frosty varnish. The steady drizzle had turned to pale flurries that blew lazily from his windshield, his wipers no longer necessary to keep his line of vision clear. He drove cautiously; the radio had warned of black ice.

He was driving because he had to drop something off. Normally he would never think of driving the thruway on a Friday evening (it is Friday, isn’t it?), but he was heading southbound which was nothing compared to the rush hour miseries of the northbound lanes. If he had been driving south than that could only mean one thing: he was going to his mother’s. What other reason is there for diving southbound on a Friday, he thought. Once more the traffic report warned of ice. He switched off the news and tuned to some music. He began to sing.

It was then that he saw the first fireball. Ablaze with fury, it illuminated the twilight sky in a massive orange sphere. The car was swamped with brilliant color and he was nearly blinded by the dazzling glow. A second fireball followed before the first was even extinguished, this one smaller although just as intense and enraged.

He instinctively slammed the brake pedal but his tires refused to grip the icy road. In the dying glow of the second explosion -- just as his brain was beginning to comprehend what was actually happening -- he witnessed before him a violent chain reaction of cars and trucks smashing into one another like some fair ground amusement gone disastrously awry.

With the final flicker of the second fireball all went black. Blinded, his scorched eyes unable to readjust quick enough, he felt the vehicle persist forward regardless of how fiercely he pumped the failing brakes. He turned the steering wheel hard to the right, choosing to take his chances towards the shoulder rather than follow the terrifying path his car, still full of vicious momentum, was currently taking. His vision began to clear and the last thing he recalled seeing before all would grow dark once again was the metal guardrail growing nearer in his headlights and then quiet blackness as his car smashed through at 60 miles per hour and was tossed airborne.

He heard nothing except the cheerful song still playing on the radio. It suddenly occurred to him, in an amusing sort of way, that he had never stopped singing. His car was in mid air, moments from slamming headfirst and rolling violently down a snowy embankment; in the brutal descent to follow the drivers side door would be ripped clean off its hinges, his unbelted body thrown from the tumbling wreck only to land in a shallow ditch and through it all, he continued to sing.

He always sang when he drove. He had such a terrible voice but the car was his private amphitheatre, a place where he could belt out his favorites without fear of mockery or ridicule. He shared this secret with no one, no one except…

Oh God, this was going to be bad. So very bad, but he had to remember.

Who was the only person in the world he was brave enough to sing in front of? Who had been his private audience that evening? Who loved him so much as to never judge and whom did he love back just as much to be set free from all his fears?

Jenny, he remembered in a moment of sudden horror. The realization was as disturbing as it was painful. Where is Jenny?

The man who could not even remember his own name rushed to what was left of his car in a frenzied descent and began searching frantically for the little girl whose name he could never forget, the little girl he had named himself: his daughter. He moved with great haste but the sensation that he existed in a world of slow motion persisted. He fumbled ineptly through the wreckage feeling weak and ineffective, unable to move even the smallest piece of his cars scattered remains. Within the debris the only thing he found were more missing pieces of agonizing memory.

His wife had reminded him to be careful as they left and he assured her he would. The ground was already slick under their feet as he and Jenny walked vigilantly down their freezing driveway. Jenny was anxious to get to her Grandmas; it was Friday evening and she was spending the weekend there because he and his wife were leaving early Saturday morning for an out of town wedding.

“Sing a song Daddy,” the excited five year old pleaded over the traffic report as they headed southbound towards his mothers, twelve miles down the thruway. “Please…”

How could he refuse her? She was his only child, the light of his life, the one person with whom he truly understood the concept of love. He tuned to a music station and began singing aloud to the first song he came to: Neil Diamond’s “Cracklin’ Rose.”

Jenny giggled and clucked from her child seat, old enough to sit in a booster like a “big girl” but small enough to still use the larger more protective seat; for safety sake. He performed joyfully for his admiring audience of one while watchfully maintaining his attention on the freezing highway.

The fuel truck passed him on the left less than a minute before it all started and he noted between verses of “Cracklin’ Rose” just how inappropriately fast it had been traveling in such icy conditions.

“Jenny!” he screamed, finally finding the small girl secured in her safety harness, still strapped into the back seat of his ruined car. She did not respond. Through the broken glass it was impossible to tell if she was even breathing. He pulled at the handle but the door would not budge. He pounded his fists on the shattered glass; it barely buckled. His body felt so incredibly weak.

“Honey, its daddy!” he shouted through tears and sobs. “Open your eyes Jenny…please!” But she did not.

He turned towards the embankment and up to the break in the guardrail. Lights of every sort now beamed and flashed from behind the gap: emergency strobes, floodlights, the amber shimmer of open flame. “Somebody,” he shouted with all the strength he could. “Please help me!”

Nothing.

He turned back to the vehicle. Like the crazed man he was he clawed at the door madly, beat the glass with all he had and kicked at the demolished quarter panel all to no avail. He cursed and screamed and wailed and when he could finally give no more he collapsed to the ground. With one final and breathless plea he cried, “Oh God, somebody! Please help me!”

Then all went silent.

She appeared at the top of the embankment as if from nowhere at all: a woman, young and fair, dressed in lavender. Though her face should have been shrouded by shadow he could see her clearly as if illuminated by a light of her own making. She navigated the rocky slope with ease and grace and was standing before him as quickly as she had appeared.

Her long hair, adorned with babies’ breath and lace, was a dramatic shade of golden honey. It blew behind her in a breeze that could not be felt and shimmered from a light that could not be seen. Her amber eyes were comforting and serene; they sparkled with white flame: brilliant, like…a star. Her complexion was fine porcelain, delicate features united in simplistic beauty. Her gentle face was timeless, like those immortalized by the greatest of the renaissance artists.

“Will you help me?” he appealed in a whisper of beseech that only she could hear.

She closed her eyes and nodded gracefully. Her entire being radiated benevolence and poise. Placing her hands on the cars battered rear door the woman with hair of gold lifted the handle; it gave way and released with total ease. He watched in amazement as she labored effortlessly doing what he had found to be impossible. She went about her work with a peaceful equanimity as she reached into the vehicle and gently removed the child. Her frail body was flaccid as the woman in lavender carried her from the wreckage in an affectionate embrace and placed her in a small grassy area untouched by snow.

“Oh my God,” he howled at the sight of his daughter’s fragile body. “She’s not breathing.”

The woman did not seem to hear him and maintained her full attention on the child. Though terribly frightened he was able to find some calm in the woman’s tender composure. With loving hands the woman in lavender brushed curly locks of brunette hair from the little one’s cherub face and for the first time he could see how pale his only child actually was. “Oh my God…” he repeated.

Working quickly, the woman whom seemed to appear out of thin air leaned over and softly pressed her rose petal lips against the child’s. With one single kiss he watched in bewilderment as the color of life, a wonderful fleshy pink returned to his little girls body. Jenny coughed weakly but her eyes remained closed. The man fell to his knees wanting to take his young daughter into his trembling arms and feel her soft body in his paternal embrace but the woman turned and stopped him.

“What are you doing?” he protested as the woman in lavender, without effort, lifted him to his feet and turned him towards the embankment. Her eyes remained calm and reassuring. In her touch he could feel a familiar warmth. She turned her attention to the embankment and beyond the guardrail. For the first time she spoke, directing her words along the path of her gaze.

“Help her.”

Her voice was placid yet effective. He did more than hear her words; he saw them, felt them. What began as simply a whisper amplified. He both listened and watched as her voice climbed the embankment as a tangible object and disappeared beyond the guardrail.

Together they waited in watchful silence.

At first it was one, then finally, two: silhouettes of men in uniform, appearing within the break in the guardrail, carving the night with powerful flashlights, their beams scanning the area in a ballet of light before finally focusing in on the small girl in the grassy clearing. They called for a third and began scaling the embankment to rescue the little victim. Their descent was treacherous. Loose stone and soil gave way in bulky chunks hampering their efforts to safely navigate the decline.

Unseen by the rescuers, a woman in lavender with babies’ breath woven into her golden hair guided their way with a silent prayer. All three reached the bottom unharmed. Upon reaching the girl, they began tending to her immediately.

Once more the man sought to move closer to his daughter but again the woman restrained him. “Let them help her.” Her words were soothing and when she took his arm in hers he complied, feeling her console flow into him through their joined bodies.

The child coughed once more, a bit stronger this time, as the emergency workers tended to her. One rescuer barked requests for further assistance into a two-way radio, the others listened with stethoscopes and examined with penlights.

“Daddy!” the little girl suddenly cried in a distressed and unsteady voice. “Where’s my daddy?”

“Oh, Jenny,” reaching out to her, “daddy’s right…” But the woman in lavender only tightened her grip.

“Let them help her,” she restated gently. Again, he complied.

One of the emergency workers ran to the car and began examining the interior with his flashlight. “There’s no one in the vehicle, Sarge!” he shouted from the twisted wreck.

“Check the perimeter!” another hollered back. “There had to be a driver!”