Remember that feeling you once had in your life when you knew for a fact that all was right with the world? Remember that point in time when adolescent innocence and adulthood are coming to play against or with each other, but you were ready for it all? Remember the last time you felt perfectly safe in the world?

This was me, the day that part of my life died.

June 3^rd, 1989.

It was four days until I would graduate. I was the typical high school kid. I wasn’t academically outstanding, no athletic superiority. I was living well with a feeling of optimism. confident with the things I was good at. I was one of the better spring board divers in the conference. I was a member of the marching band that was on the way to being one of the best in the state. I had a beautiful cheerleader for a girlfriend, most unheard of for a guy like me, especially when you consider she didn’t even go to my school. I had great friends and family, I was happy beyond belief.

 Man, it felt good to be alive.

 I had just spent the day at Six Flags with the band, marching in parades and spending the day with my buddies. My friends, Kevin and Eric and I made a tape in one of those karaoke booths. We sang “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” and received a lot of compliments on our way out.

Life was great.

When I got home a few of my other friends called to ask if I wanted to see a movie and go out for a while afterwards.

What could be better on a day like this?

I drove to Julies, watched TV and waited for her to get done with the usual teen girl getting ready to go out stuff. She looked great as always.

We left her parents house, discussing everything that had happened in both our days. We laughed about my friends and I singing, much less in public. I was proud that she had been made co-captain of the cheerleading squad.

Life was great.

Sometimes, I look back and it seems like it was a dream, warm and fuzzy. All those good times I knew. Then, sometimes, the memories of the one day wake me in a cold sweat of a nightmare that will never go away.

It was 9:10pm. The sun was reluctantly giving way to the night, blazing its’ last crimson though the sky. We were two remarkably happy souls. The radio was softly playing in the background, 93.3 WQFM was putting out their slower ballads, adding to the colorful symphony around us. “I love you. “ I said as we crested the first of two small hills in the road we’d traveled so many times before. She smiled sweetly, and got the look that one gets when you know thw other means it.

“I love you too,” she cooingly whispered.

That’s when it all went wrong.

There were three cars in the lane going the other direction. There was a fourth in my lane coming straight at us.

I tried to avoid it, but the beast kept coming I tried to protect her but the monster bared down on us so fast, I tried with everything I had to get out of the way. I tried!

There was a flash, the kind you see when struck in the head. It didn’t feel like a normal hit. Diving I’d been smacked around a plenty. I heard a crunch and everything went black. This was not the kind of darkness you have everyday. It swallowed me from the inside out. Then I went, for lack of a better term, away. I don’t know how long I was gone, but it may as well have been forever because the feeling haunts me. To this day I have no true way to describe what I felt. My heart and body went cold. There seemed to be a complete decimation of all I believed in or hoped for. My soul felt like it was being ripped from me in a shredding way that lasted for years. Everything was black, dark, cold, sharp, jagged. Yet even in the dark I could see it all. It pierced me from every direction, rendering me to a lifeless, horrified nothingness. There was a depth to the darkness that raked over my mind like a thousand razor-needled fingers. My skin burned from the heat of the cold I felt within. The silence around me thundered in my ears. It was I assure you all too real.

Then I woke up to hear my girlfriend next to me making a choking sound, as if struggling hard for air. “Breathe Julie!” I said.

The wet breath almost came again. “Breathe! … Breathe!” I pleaded.

I tried to look at her and realized that I could see nothing. All was dark. There was a cool tickle running down my face, and a metallic taste in my mouth. There were the smells of oil, coolant, burned rubber and an odd hissing sound that started me to fear.

When I tried my door it wouldn’t budge. Still I heard Julie, that ungodly sound of one who’s begging for air. “Breathe Ju!”

 I started to thrash against the door and my arm found the hole where the window used to be.

 “Jesus Ju,  just BREATHE! Please take a breath, for me. God, please!”

“I’m trying ass-hole!” she finally forced out.

I pulled myself out of the window. Placed my hand on the car and followed the buckled metal to the passenger side. When I found the opposite door and pulled it open it had no weight to it at all. I collapsed next to the car, arm over my face and said, ”Don’t look at me, what ever you do, don’t look at me, and just breathe.”

“It hurts, but I’m okay. What about you?” she asked in a near panicked tone.

“Just don’t look at me, I’m going to be fine. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

A sound came up behind me, “Are you Okay?” a woman’s voice asked, a pair of hands held my shoulders. I fell more that relaxed into her.

“I’m fine, make sure Julie’s OK. Don’t worry about me. Take care of Julie.”

“I’m a nurse,” the stranger said. “Let me see your face.”

“Julie, don’t look.” I reminded again, and pulled my arm from my face. I heard that sort of hissing sound from them both, the one people make as if to say, ‘that looks nasty’. “Thanks,” I said “that’s encouraging! And I told YOU not to look Julie!”

“Just took me a little by surprise is all, and I’ve seen worse.” said the stranger, not too convincingly.

“What did you think I was going to do?” Julie shot back. I was just happy to hear her breathing and the slight smile in her voice when she added, “Duh!”

“I wish you’d listen to me once in a while,” then fell into a quiet place only a little relieved.

To be continued

If I can.