Signed & Sealed

{O n e}

Drip

Drip

Drip

Whoosh

Just as the bottom of the sky began to fall, I lost sight of the road ahead through the windshield. Switching on the wiper blades only left a fuzzy streak of lines that blurred together instead of clearing the window. Heavy winds began to pick up outside, swaying against the car only causing it to rock slightly. Each gust of wind pelted the heavy rain against the metal frame until it sounded like rocks getting thrown around wildly. Even in the early moments of the storm, I could tell it would only get worse from here. Being so dark outside left my bright headlights seeming dim, and the blanket of fog that covered the road made it near impossible to see the lines painted against the asphalt.

"Sissy, why is the rain so hard?" Noah asked from the backseat. My five-year-old brother was not asleep like I had assumed he was earlier. Instead, Noah was gazing out his window with curiosity to the loud mirage of noises that probably sounded like a freight train next to us. There are times he asks so many questions that I cant seem to keep up with him, but for the past two hours of our five-hour drive, he was silent. Peaking at Noah through my rearview mirror, I found his eyes glued to the darkness around us, but he didn't seem to mind. "Well, honey, sometimes the sky needs to have a good cry. The harder it falls, the more it needed to get rid of the tears," I gave a childlike answer knowing he wouldn't understand the science behind rain if I tried to explain it to him.

After a long day at work already, and then this horrid night time trip that would run close to four hours in this rain, I felt my eyelids grow heavy, and the darkness only aided to my drowsiness. What was so crucial that Benjamin needed us to travel tonight instead of tomorrow morning? Our older brother knows that I hate driving at night as it is, and now with the rain, it only got worse. "If the sky is crying, does that mean God is sad?" Noah believes in God because of our parents, and their deaths gave him the reason to believe. When they died in a car accident, the only thing Benjamin and I could come up with for Noah, was that God was ready for them to come home. Of course, he is little and won't truly understand death, but one day he will, and our parents were firm believers in Christ.

"Well, I haven't asked God if he is sad, so I'm not sure. Why don't you ask him through prayer?" I insisted with the hopes that Noah could focus on a positive note instead of a negative one. As I glanced back to the rearview mirror, I took my eyes from the road and in that second of the action, the steering wheel began to tremble lightly beneath my palms. Beneath the tires, slick asphalt left the tread slipping and sliding uncontrollably. With heavy winds that only aided to rock the car unsteady, the wheel began to shake vigorously below my touch until I felt the car jerk with a sudden skid.

"Hold on tight Noah," I managed to cry out, but it was useless. Within seconds, the car slid off the road. No longer on a slick wet asphalt, the tires began to spin against rocks and dirt which left the whole car wobbling fiercely. Noah didn't have time to get in words, and my warning went unheard because, within seconds, the vehicle was moving downhill. No longer on the apparent path of the highway, the downhill motion only pushed the mass of metal over until it toppled in a flip. Like a tornado of clashing metals, all different sides of the car began caving in with each tumble down. Glass began to shatter against impact, bush branches stuck in through the broken windows, and the sudden stop of the tumbling meant we hit something that jerked the car forward with a halt.

Blood began rushing to my head, pain throbbed in most of my body until the numbing chill set in, and everything around my vision danced in blurred motions. As I blinked repeatedly, I tried to clear my eyesight more, but it was useless. Everything was so dark and with the pouring rain seeping into the open cracks of the vehicle, cold water sprayed against my body until I shivered. "Noah?" I tried to speak, but my throat seemed parched and itchy, and his name barely escaped my lips. "Noah?" I tried to talk again, this time it came raspy but audible. The screams he once bellowed out came to a stop as the car did, and my heart raced with fear of what that meant. Struggling with the tightly latched seatbelt that held me in place, and with the car upside down, the belt only remained in a lock.