The Point of Impact

The garbage truck driver looked at his watch.  “5:00 a.m.  I’m #$%# late,” he muttered.  He pushed the pedal down and sped north through the wet city streets.

Coming from the east, the driver of the SUV looked at his watch. “5:00 a.m. I’m late,” he cursed. He accelerated.

The light changed but neither man paid any attention to it.

It was the point in time and place where two fates met in an eruption of glass, metal and airbags.  Time slowed to a stand-still.  The man in the SUV saw his childhood as clear as day.

There was Susie Jenkins. How he loved her when he was six.  She had brown hair and eyes and a smile that would melt snow.  He saw his mom making him breakfast in the morning. He remembered lying on his grandmother’s floor, sleeping in complete security.  He remembered his first kiss, stolen in the back of the gym at the dance. His wife standing at the alter, a tear running down her face.  He saw more tears as she left him for his infidelity. The then the mistakes starting flowing like water from a broken dam. The relationships he never mended.  He felt the cold dirt as he threw it on his parents’ caskets. That’s when he felt the pain.  Then there was a white flash and nothing.

The garbage driver slammed on his brakes and the truck began to skid.  The massive green and yellow beast began to tip and then planted again firmly on the ground.  The sound of impact would haunt him for the rest of his life.  The smell of smoke and the heat of the fire would, too.  And the burns on his hands would take months to heal.

The driver of the SUV woke to see flames coming from in front of him. Time suddenly sped up.  The airbags had saved him but for how long? The door, crushed by the garbage truck’s bumper had impacted it, was jammed shut.  He struggled with the seat belt but it was jammed, too.  Smoke began to fill the car, obscuring his vision and burning his lungs.  He never saw the hulking figure rushing toward him.

Adrenaline can turn a mouse into a lion.  The garbage driver stepped into the flames an grabbed the door handle.  He smelled his flesh burn and felt the searing pain.  But God himself could not have stopped him from what happened next. With a giant pull, he ripped the door off the car and yanked the stunned driver out of the SUV.  Seatbelt and all.  Superman would have been in total awe.

The garbage truck driver pulled the SUV driver to the curb right as the crushed vehicle exploded into flames.  A fireball lit the early morning sky, leaving both men stunned.

“Thank you,” the SUV driver said.  He fumbled for his wallet and handed the man his card.  “You saved my life. If I can ever help you, let me know.”

Dr. Gary Vinings. Onocologist.

Three months later, Dr. Vinings got a call.  “Dr. Vinings, it’s Malcolm Fredricks, the driver of the garbage truck that hit you.  I have a strange lump and need your help.”

“Come in immediately, and I’ll see what we can do for you.”

X-rays, CT scans, blood tests and other tests (all paid for by Dr. Vinings) revealed a tumor.  Immediate surgery, treatment (once again all paid for by Dr. Vinings) and follow-up left the garbage truck driver cancer-free.

Dr. Gary Vinings visited Malcolm Fredricks in his hospital room. “We caught it in time. Good thing you called when you did.”

There was a pause. And then silence.  Both men looked at each other and realized their lives had been changed by the chance meeting of two objects in time and space. That they were saved at the point of impact.