Elsewhere by Tori Walters

        George Bremer CC



Elsewhere


You are driving home from Walmart with supplies for spring break in the back of your car—the black Mazda your mom used to drive. I know the music you like; I hear Twenty-One Pilots on the radio or maybe some Brooks & Dunn. Your phone is in your lap, on the top of your right thigh, sticking to tan skin. You haven’t received a text from me in days, I’m determined to stay mad at you—forgiveness shouldn’t always come so easy. You have both hands on the wheel, cause that’s how you drive; you learned from your mother who drives the same way. You cross a two-lane bridge with red beams that reach up overhead and cast shadows atop your car like temporary tattoos. You swerve to avoid debris suddenly before you, throwing your car into the other lane—the ice on the bridge makes sure of that. You are hit, head on, by a truck coming from where you are going, going to where you are leaving, and you break your jaw and some ribs upon contact. Your arm hangs out the window, blood dripping down onto the bridge, and you become part of the sky.

But your mom tells me you had dog food in the back of your car. She tells me you were heading to the shelter to pick up a dog that you and your boyfriend, Keith, picked out. 

So, you are driving home from Walmart with dog food in the back of your car. Today’s top hits boom from the speakers, Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” or Sam Hunt’s “Take Your Time.” Maybe the windows are down because it’s March in Texas which means it must be warm. You’re smiling more now, thinking about that little pup waiting for you at the pound. You and Keith picked out a name for her, Lily, and it’s engraved on a metallic bone clipped to a collar in the back of your car. You’re thinking about how excited she’ll be to see you; how happy Keith will be when he gets off work and gets home to see the two of you waiting there for him. Maybe you got Blue Buffalo, maybe Purina puppy chow, maybe it’s a kibble brand I don’t know about. Both hands on the wheel. Phone on your thigh. No texts from me. The debris is still there, the ice still slick, your car is in the other lane and the puppy never comes home.

My mom tells me you were dead by the time they got you to the hospital. You died in the ambulance, or maybe even before then.

In the driver’s seat, after you’ve swerved, after you’ve hit the truck head on, your eyes are closed. You feel no pain. Your arm hangs. Your blood drips. You are dreaming a final dream. I’ve never seen it differently.

I learn that a nurse stopped at the scene, she checked your pulse, felt it there, weak and weakening. 

Now your eyes flutter—after debris, after ice, after truck—but you’re still somewhere else, not in this body that is broken and bleeding and betraying the life I imagined for you.

And then Mom says your crash reminded her of Princess Di’s crash. When I asked how so, she explained that your car swerved into the other lane so that you were perpendicular to the truck that hit you. Meaning you were not hit head on but instead t-boned. 

You swerve, slip, spin, and you do not see the truck head on but instead, maybe, water under the bridge. Maybe it makes you think of me. But I imagine you think of Keith waiting for you to come home; your parents getting a phone call that isn’t from you; your friends canceling those spring break plans to Galveston; Lily looking at the sky wondering if that couple will come back and take her home—they were so nice, so sweet, smelling of forever.

The first officer on scene played ultimate in Dallas, where we played on the same team for years, where you kept playing after I left for college in a different state. He doesn’t recognize you, but the fact that he played winter league means that he’s seen you run across a field to catch a disc. Maybe he saw the two of us and how we were before—like sisters, inseparable. He’s seen you alive before he sees you here, now, differently: not running, not laughing, hand not catching a disc but dripping down the side of a car.

The man in the truck is an old man who I wish had died instead of you. Seventy-six years old and barely injured—breathing. I curse him for years. But Mom tells me he’s from Houston, that my aunt works for him—so I can’t wish him dead anymore. Because now he’s someone—he’s Joe. His outline solidifies in the scene I imagine: grey hair, thin skin, slamming on the brakes and praying for his truck to stop. To not hit you. To not kill you. You do not hit him head on, so he doesn’t see your face until after. Maybe he remembers your hair, your arms, the way you don’t wake up. He thinks about you often.

You are driving home from Walmart; your phone is in your lap; music blasts through the speakers and it’s Green Day; you lose control of the car; the bridge isn’t a bridge like I thought it would be, not like the one over the Red River on our way to the ranch for the weekend, instead it is a road over a small creek, over train tracks; you swerve because maybe you didn’t see the debris at first, Lily on your mind, the smile on your face keeps you from seeing there’s something to avoid, and when you do see it, the bits of wood or trash or plastic gathered on the side of the bridge but reaching into your lane, you’re too close to slow down so you swerve; you don’t know there’s ice on the bridge, it’s March, it’s Texas, and you slip and lose control of the car; the black Mazda 3 that your mom used to drive, she gave me gum when I sat in the back and you played “American Idiot” and she asked you to turn it down but you didn’t listen, is hit broadside, t-boned, like Princess Di; your head hits the side window; cause of death: aortic tear or dissection, or perforated lung from broken ribs—pneumothorax, or perforated liver exsanguinate, or head trauma bleed. You die in different ways, little details changing. You see the train tracks, you see tree tops, you see a creek flowing. Your eyes close, you think about something I cannot touch, cannot name, cannot hope to know—what is the last thing on your mind?

But Keith tells me he saw the accident from where he worked. He didn’t know it was you who was dying out on the bridge. For a while he lived in a different reality; one where you don’t swerve to avoid debris but instead go around it smoothly; you nod at the older man in the truck as he passes you by, sharing a smile; you make it to the pound and pick up Lily; you get back to the apartment and let her sniff around; you go into your bedroom and finish packing for Galveston (you leave the next day as indicated by the calendar on the wall); Lily maybe has an accident before Keith gets home; he helps you clean it up before dinner; the three of you become a family for a while; you eat pizza because neither of you want to cook; Lily is tuckered out from the prospect of the happy life that tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow promise her within these walls with the two of you to keep her safe and warm; you leave the next morning for your trip to the beach; you get into the car with friends already in the backseat, road trip ready; Keith stands at the bottom of the stairs with Lily in his arms; you hop out one last time to give him and her a kiss; you say, see you in a few days; and you will; and you do; the clink of Lily’s name on her collar echoes in the space between two accidents: the one Keith sees, and when he knows it’s you.

So, finally, here you are, driving home from Walmart in that black Mazda your mom used to drive with supplies for the puppy you’re about to pick up in the back. You’re listening to a song I’ve heard before; I know the words, it’s like I’m singing along with you. Your phone is in your lap, you’re waiting for the screen to light up with my name, I love you, sis. You have both hands on the wheel. You cross a two-lane bridge, that is really just a road over water and train tracks and trees. Lily, the puppy waiting for you, is on your mind so you don’t see the collection of trash seeping into your lane; even though it is March, even though it is Texas, there is ice on the bridge. You swerve to avoid the debris suddenly before you, throwing your car into the other lane—the ice on the bridge makes sure of that. You spin and face a scene: water, trees, train tracks, blue blue sky. You do not see the truck that hits you, throwing your body against the driver’s door; cause of death: aortic tear or dissection, or pneumothorax, or perforated liver exsanguinate, or head trauma bleed. Your pulse is fading, I still see your arm hanging out of the window as you slip into unconsciousness. You find a deep dream, your body becomes distant, any pain felt by your flesh doesn’t find you here. Outside there are sirens, there is panic, there is grief, there are all the texts you were waiting for, and there are the days on the calendar that you marked up with plans, so many days, each one ignorant of what will happen today—what has happened.

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Tori Walters is an educator and writer based in Hendrix, OK. She works at Austin College as a Staff Writer. Tori also reads and edits Creative Nonfiction for Variant Literature, was a resident of the NES Artist Residency in 2023, and holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. This morning, she fed her miniature donkey, Princess, a pear. 

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