How it Ends

Bridge

I'm stopped on the bridge that spans over the river between home and school. I hate this particular bridge, even more so when I'm stopped. It's narrow and old and receives entirely too much and too heavy traffic for its condition.

I suck in a breath as a van rolls past, causing the "ground" I am upon to tremble. Another breath as my eyes follow it, ensuring that our vehicles do not scrape and that the bridge is, in fact, still where it's supposed to be. My heart must be beating 180 times each minute--as if I had just gone on a run. "It's fine," I remind myself as three cars my own's size roll past as if they don't feel remorse for the slight jouncing they cause. "The bridge won't collapse. You've crossed it twice a day for the past two years, and nothing has happened."

I gulped in more air. Why wasn't the light turning green? As much as I could assure myself that catastrophe wasn't on today's agenda, I wanted off. My mind was running through a million anxiety-reducing tactics a minute, but they all contradicted one another--sing along to the radio; breathe more slowly; think about how much fun you'll have with your friends at school instead of on this godforsaken--

A tiny noise of dread escaped my lips. "He doesn't have the clearance for this bridge. He'll have to back up. I'll be late for school." This was all whispered out loud in a vain attempt to make it seem more ridiculous and inconvenient than terrifying:

A freight truck was midway through a turn at the intersection at the end of the bridge, stopped by the realization that he couldn't fit. The sedan behind the tuck honked, just like any brilliant adult does during the morning rush. The truck was going to have to piss very many more drivers off to merge into a different lane and avoid the bridge. If not for my own impatience, I would have felt bad.

And then the driver decided he could fit. Slowly, so, so slowly, he pulled closer, trying to angle himself just right so that he wouldn't sideswipe me or any of the other five cars already on the bridge. My mind was only too willing to start thinking of all the ways this could go wrong, and how I would possibly fix or prevent them.

"So he scrapes Gir. It'll be embarrassing for a week to have such damaged paint, but he'll have to pay for it. No harm done." I glanced in my rear-view mirror, hoping that I could wiggle my car to the right, as far away as possible from where the truck would pass by.

No such chance.

A low groan sounded from--my eyes darted to all my surroundings without actually focusing on anything--everywhere. The car two places in front of me gave up on his left turn, darting off to the right to risk getting lost for the sake of not being here any longer, but the car directly in front was feeling more stubborn. The driver of the truck seemed to reconsider, stopping once more, but the sedan behind him was not going to forsake his turn by letting the truck back off the bridge.

"Glass breaker in the glove box," I said aloud as the truck began forward again, clearing the top supports by less than a foot. The bridge shrieked in protest, and I could be certain that the cars behind me were beginning to vacate, though my eyes could not focus on anything more than the silver monster blocking the sunrise out and turning my world cold as night. "Glass breaker in the glove box. Glass breaker in the glove box. Glass breaker in the glove box."

Somehow, the truck fit. I could feel the bridge bowing under the weight of it, and as it crept past I could have reached out and cleaned some of the dust off its side, but it fit. "No new paint for you, Gir--"

A sound louder than I'd ever heard, louder than when I had stood ten feet from a train as it raced by at however-many miles per hour, echoed through every cell in my body, and instead of in front of and to the left of me, the blue car and freight truck were above.

Glass breaker in the glove box.

My head snapped backwards and I had only enough time to gasp before it whipped forward again.

Forward, where the steering wheel was.