Glitches

Glitches - Chapter 3

Eventually I realized that I needed to stop Glitching in public.  The enormous volatility was just too dangerous to continue in full view of anyone and everyone.  The stakes were too high now.  Much too high.  But I didn’t realize just how dangerous it was until the incident with the semi.

Let me explain.  After a particularly terrible day with Yolanda, several of her aunts, and her parents I decided to get out and go for a walk to blow off some steam.  Each step was more of a stomp than it was a step.  As I trounced my way further and further away from my house I tunneled deeper and deeper into my anger.  I was oblivious to everything and everyone around me. 

An hour into my walk there was a sudden screeching of a horn blast and the sound of tires ripping across the pavement.  The chaos crystalized in front of me as I realized that a semi was barreling through a red light less than ten feet away from me. 

Snap-GLITCH. 

And like that the entire tableaux was paused right there in all its panoramic glory.  There was the Pepsi semi - smoke flying off its breaks -  halfway through the intersection.  Less than five feet from the front of the out of control semi was a small car with a young couple staring at the incoming behemoth with eyes as wide as saucers.

Looking back at it now I should have just released the glitch and watched the carnage unfold.  But in defense of my actions it really was the only thing I could have done.  There weren’t any other options available to me.  Letting the couple get crushed wasn’t really an option now that the Glitch held them safely alive for the time being.  I just wasn’t that guy who would not help. 

So without even thinking I found myself at the door of the car, which was seconds away from absolutely getting demolished.  There was nothing I could do about that.  But that was when the full horror of the situation became clear.  There in the backseat of this tin-can of a car I noticed that there were two children in the backseat buckled into carseats.  A baby and a toddler.  Their eyes couldn’t get any wider

As I was fumbling my way into the car I began doing the math of how long it would take to get the family of four out of the car safely.  Two parents.  Two children encased in carseats.  A hundred yards to safety for each.  It was going to take at least two minutes minutes to get the entire family out safely and over to the nearby sidewalk.  Could I hold the glitch for that long?  The anger of the day was on my side of course.  But even so, I’d never intentionally sustained a glitch that long before.  I didn’t think the odds were very good.  But even so, I had to try.  I was all in now.

I needed to get at least one parent out of the two door car before I could get to the kids in the backseat.  A part of my brain laughed a bit at the lifeboat conversation I was having in my head while the more primal areas of my brain worried about actually surviving myself.  I threw the mother over my shoulder and fireman carried her as fast as I physically could.  I unceremoniously threw her to the sidewalk and sprinted back to the car. 

Deep inside the bowels of the car I found myself hyperventilating a bit knowing that I was running out of time.  The children seemed welded to the car with their 92 point harnesses.  I was unfamiliar with how these things worked, how was anyone supposed to be able to get their children out of a contraption like this?  When I finally had both children decoupled from their car seats I hefted the baby in my left arm and the toddler over my right shoulder.  I know that I smacked heads against the car frame and I’m sure I bruised them significantly getting out of the car in such a hurry.  But at that point I knew my window was closing very rapidly now. I could almost hear the crackling of the glitch as it began to come unmoored. 

I heaved the kids onto their mother and sprinted as fast as I could back to the car.  I momentarily thought about not even trying to get the father out of the car, just letting it go.  But there was something there driving me forward, to not accept defeat as an option.  I searched the day for an untapped comment when I remembered Yolanda wiping coffee off my tie while giving a look to one of her parents.  That eyebrow, cocked accusingly, was the power to help me surge me forward.  I heard the glitch firm up a bit and hold with the added power from this internal rage.