Struck

Terminal Velocity

Now I don't believe in fate or miracles or any of that magic crap, but I do know that there are anomalies in this universe that are unexplainable, like spontaneous human combustion, or how out of a probability of 1 and 360 billion, I was struck by lightning not once, but twice during one isolated thunderstorm. What I still ask myself even 15 years after this occasion isn't how it effected my life so inherently, but why it did.

In consequence to both having no direction to my life whatsoever and being a recently deserted 20 year old male in his third semester of college, I was questioning the two things I previously knew to be unquestionably unmalleable about myself: my identity as a human being and my purpose on this rock. These two components of my very being had been lost due to the sheer proximity of death. Like most things appreciated by the people of our world, stories end, just as yours and mine will.

As many stories begin, mine arises on a stormy night in the small city of Stevensville, Michigan. The four-lane concrete-poured bridge rumbled with the pass of every speeding car under the soles of my bare size-thirteen feet. Behind one of many metal pillars holding up the infrastructure of the passage, I stood leaning against the concrete lining of the overpass, estimating just how high above the earth I resided.

Twenty feet away was my parked grey 2007 Corolla, which in consequence to me having been kicked out of my ex-girlfriend's apartment that night, was stuffed like a can of sardines with every article of clothing, item of value, and basic necessity of mine that I could manage to fit in, except one thing- my goddamn shoes. At this rate, I figured, my life has reached a velocity destined for failure.

I had studied a plethora of different fatalities in the forensic science class I took in my first semester of college, but the fatality that stuck out to me the most was death by falling. I learned about how the sudden deceleration of the fall is what kills a person; it's not the fall that kills you- it's the sudden stop at the end. It makes no difference what particularly causes that sudden deceleration, whether it's superman flying from beneath to catch you, or the Earth's crust itself. Peering down over the concrete lining of the overpass, I watched the various drops of rain fall until they vanished in to the darkness of what hid so far down. I wondered if the 279 foot fall would be enough to do the job.

My right leg lifted up towards the top of the concrete border, eager to feel the nothingness of what was on the other side. Keeping my balance as I maneuvered myself halfway over, my hands and bare feet grasped at either sides of the concrete wall. The thoughts that raced through my head weren't begging for Miranda's soft skin or my apartment keys or my warm bed, but for the velocity of my life as it was to accelerate until the Earth itself would not let me any longer.

The bridge below me rumbled as I felt a sudden warmth flow through me from my toes to the very top of my head. Initially I had no idea what happened, or if I was even alive. I found myself in the middle of the four-lane overpass, my limbs shaking and my heart racing. Two cars were stopped, blockading any other vehicles from passing through the two middle lanes.

"Can you hear me? Buddy, are you okay?"

"Someone call an ambulance!"

"Where the hell are his shoes?"

I looked around with wide eyes. My senses felt heightened- every raindrop that splattered on my skin felt like a spark of electricity. The sound of multiple sirens could be heard, though the red and blue flashes seemed to be miles away. The multitude of different colored umbrellas grew in amount as concerned drivers stopped to observe what was going on. The rain did not seize, nor did the rumbling of the earth below us.

"What's your name, son?" a grey-haired man asked me, standing what seemed like a yard away from me, as if I would somehow hurt him if he came close enough.

In contrary to the warm feeling that entered me through my feet, another sensation entered my body through what felt like every crevice and vein of my body, sending surges of energy through my back and arms. My ears could not process the overwhelming sound that occurred as a packaged deal to the attack I underwent. I laid motionless on the cold, wet concrete.