It was a snowy night, some would call it a white out; Ben wouldn't, he would (sarcastically) call it another winter night in good old Rochester. He just finished his shift after a long day in class and was ready to get into his nice warm bed and quit all this driving across the city. Ben was young; twenty-something, just beginning his life really but still wise beyond his years. He was tall, a little on the heavier side but nothing that he didn't know or didn't accept. He wore his brown hair short, and his beard unkempt; his green eyes were staring out at the brake lights of the minivan ahead of him. He thought about passing the car, only to make this trip shorter and to get to that bed of his that minute or two faster, but he looked into the old minivan and changed his mind. Inside the minivan he saw a mother, probably around forty, at wits end with her two kids in the back seats. The sight of the two kids creaming and causing all sorts of havoc made Ben chuckle, and he took his foot off the accelerator. In his mind Ben was already in his bed, wrapped in a blanket and reading some pages of Alexander Dumas's "The Count of Monte Cristo", his favorite book. But he had to snap out of his fantasy, he was driving, and he just noticed a problem down the road, a pair of headlights entering his lane a couple miles down the road. You could barely see the dim lights through the snow but it was clear to Ben that these lights were where they shouldn't be. Ben focused his gaze down the road, to confirm what he was seeing, this is when he saw the outline of a semi connected to those rapidly brightening headlights. Ben peered into the shoulder to see if he could get out of its way, the little section of road was clear minus a couple inches of snow, but the woman ahead of him was still heading along the same path, "surely she can see what I see" Ben thought to himself. The woman was still yelling at her children, barely keeping her eyes on the road. "Hey lady!" Ben said to himself as he pushed down the horn on his steering wheel when he saw the truck even clearer. This seemed to just aggravate the woman further, she looked back at Ben , opened her window, and wave him by. "Come on, look up" Ben thought to himself as he paused for a second before he continued blaring on the horn, the woman who was now be barraged by a series of Cheerio's from one of the children simply raised her hand out of the window and lowered all but one of her fingers in response. "God damn it!" Ben said as he noticed the truck was in clear view now and was still on a path directly into the woman and himself, he had to act now. Ben pushed the pedal of his accelerator down to the floor, "There isn't much time left" Ben thought as he guessed how long it would take for the truck to smash into the minivan. He pulled alongside the minivan and continued honking his horn, the woman simply looked at him and just yelled profanities at him. Ben then pointed in front of her which was enough to get her attention, she peered up and saw the lights, now a bright sun in the cloud of snow. The woman froze, her elbows lock, and her eyes just widened like a deer who knew there was nothing they could do to prevent their death. Ben looked up at the truck, now mere seconds away from fusing with the woman and her children, he decided to act, he ripped the wheel of his steering column hard to the right. His car bounced into the minivan and used it as an over sized bumper car. The minivan careened off the road and traveled down a grassy hill and quickly spun out harmlessly. Ben on the other hand had just enough time to look up into the impending doom of the headlights in front of him, and one final thought crossed his mind...
"I never told her how much I love her"
The semi hit head long into the the car, it threatened to vault directly over it and perhaps even roll a few times but it didn't, the hit was hard and square, right into the grill. The semi and the car merged together, the car compressing so much so that the front half of the vehicle was literally embedded into the truck. The driver of the semi was simply asleep at the wheel, not a horrific man bent on creating havoc and killing someone, rather a man simply trying to put food on the table for his family, working a long shift like Ben had. The man was hurt but eventually recovered, even though he could never forgive himself. The woman and her children had spun into a clearing and were fine minus some bumps and dizziness, they walked away from the crash completely fine and indebted to a complete stranger they had never met nor would ever truly know. Ben on the other hand, well, he had one final trip to make for the day before he could be laid to rest. He was a free man now.
