overwriting...

It was not my intention to add so much detail to the work I had posted. I was just writing it the way it was coming to mind. I am not strictly writing for myself though, and I want to make sure the work is the best it can be. I asked a well known author to read the beginning of the work I posted here, and his response was similar to most of the positive responses I received; however, he did say that the work was too "overwritten." Most of the comments here have been positive towards the amount of detail I added to the story, but many of the details were not essential to moving the story forward, so I have edited it down quite a bit. I want to post the revised story here, and hope that those who have read the previous story can tell me which they prefer. thanks...

These things I have seen. These words are not made up, like some fabricated tale formed inside a fragile mind unable to deal with life's adversities. No, these events are all historic truths; the way it was, and the way it should be. And if it wasn't for the incomprehensibly foolish actions of only one individual, the way it would be now. But here I am, instead of living the most fulfilling, unimaginable life in a paradise world, I sit here jotting down this history on these scraps of paper afforded me by those who guard these walls of bars and steel . They've told me I can have all the paper I want. The doctors seem to think that by allowing me to write all the illusions they say my mind is conjuring up, I will be able to sort out whatever psychological trauma I endured and get back on the road to sanity. Some of the caretakers are of the opinion that my story is such a quixotic fantasy, that it could possibly even be published as a good science-fiction novel. So, the only thing I can do now is to write everything that has happened in as much detail as I can, in the hopes that someone will read this, and believe that the history I speak of is factual and can happen once again. I am powerless to do anything from where I am now, but I hope this can be read by someone who is not. If that is you, then put the words you are about to read here into action, and correct the wrongs I have suffered on the world, making things again as they should be.

To understand what has happened, we must go back to where it all started. My name is Travis Miles. I grew up in the small town of; Pe Ell, Washington. It's so small, that a few residents of nearby towns have bumper stickers on their cars that read, "Where the hell is Pe Ell?" There is no police station or even a stoplight; just a tiny post office, and more importantly to most, Big Bucks Tavern. But in spite of its size, I can think of no where on earth I'd rather have spent the first 18 years of my life.

At 11:13pm, on the night of my best friend Charlie's twenty-first birthday, life would change forever. It was only a short fifteen minute drive home from Candy's Bar and Grill, where we had spent a couple hours celebrating with a few close friends and a couple of his not-so-close college classmates who had invited themselves to join us at our table (probably because everyone in the party received a twenty percent birthday discount).The rain started when we were about half way home and I had just turned on the radio in time to hear the last few lines of Heaven Is a Place On Earth by Belinda Carlisle. Washington is known for its rain for good reason. No matter how used to driving in treacherous conditions you may be, trying to maneuver down Interstate 5 in a typical Washington downpour, while navigating through the seemingly endless maze of 75 foot semi trucks hauling their loads from Seattle to Portland and beyond, can often feel like playing Russian Roulette with guns the size of an entire sporting goods store.

When we collided with the 18 wheeler, the whole world slowed to a near standstill. It wasn't a devastating impact, but just enough to send the car spinning out of control. As blistering cold water began seeping into the car's interior, I realized that we had skidded off the freeway, straight into the Chehalis River and were sinking fast. I glanced over at Charlie as I struggled to open my jammed door. Charlie was pale white, and just sat there, his eyes wide open, and his hands still firmly grasping the steering wheel. "Charlie!" I shouted, "Can you get your door open?" The reality of the situation suddenly seemed to snap into his head. He reached for his door handle, jerked it up and frantically began to push, but the water pressure was making it impossible to open either door. The chilling water had by now nearly enveloped the vehicle, and was continuing to pour in as we scuffled with the doors. Without manual windows, it seemed the only hope was to break the glass, so I began to repeatedly kick my window as the water was now waist high. With no success, I reached back and opened Charlie's toolbox, which he kept inside due to the inconsistent performance of the automobile, and grabbed the hammer. Desperately bashing, cracks began to appear, and suddenly the glass shattered as the river instantly engulfed the car's interior. I looked over at Charlie, motioning him to follow me out the window, and pulled myself out of the car. Nearly out of air, I glanced back to see him following, and quickly headed for the surface. Sticking my head out of the gelid water, I gasped for air as my body felt nearly hypothermic and I waited a second for Charlie to appear. Five seconds passed, ten seconds, twenty seconds; silence. No Charlie. An enormous feeling of terror and loss set in, as I realized he was still in the river, and would not be coming out on his own. I mumbled to myself, "Please God," and taking a deep breath of air, I headed back into the frigid river and down towards the now sunken car.

Catching a glimpse of Charlie's motionless body through the murky water, a sense of both relief and panic came over me. I saw that a strap on his jacket had gotten stuck on the door latch. With numbness rapidly overtaking my motor functions, I struggled to free him and pull his limp body to the surface and over to the shore. "Charlie," I said, as I firmly shook him back and forth. Again, this time with a hysteric yell, I cried "Charlie!" But there was no response, so I began pushing his chest and trying my best to do CPR, which I had only learned once, years ago in junior high school. As I continued, I didn't notice the flashlights heading towards us, and glaring lights from emergency vehicles in the distance. The medics approached us and pulled me away; taking over a task that now seemed to be futile. Sitting me down, they quickly covered me with several blankets.

"We need to get you warmed up," I heard a concerned voice utter. By now I barely noticed how freezing and numb I truly was. With a look of reassurance, the gangly rescuer knelt down to where I was sitting and asked, "What happened here?"

Ignoring the question, I anxiously asked, "My friend…is he…?"


"We're doing all we can," he replied in a calm, yet unconfident tone. "We need to get you to the hospital," he continued as he motioned for me to get into the back of the ambulance. Seemingly knowing my next question, he repeated, "We're doing everything we can for your friend, and he'll be taken to the hospital as well."

As the doors of the ambulance closed, I caught a glimpse of Charlie lying flat on a stretcher, being lifted into a separate ambulance. There was a respirator in his mouth, and a medic standing next to him, pumping his chest as I had done earlier. I laid back and drifted out of consciousness.

Having only suffered some mild hypothermia, I was released from the hospital the next day. Charlie's condition was much more serious, however. A day went be, then a week, then two weeks. But Charlie lay unconscious, comatose and with no sign of life other than the movement of his chest and an occasional twitching of his eyes. Every day, I'd get up early, thinking to myself, "Today is the day he'll wake up," and every night I'd leave the hospital, despondent and overrun with guilt for not being able to get him out of the car sooner, or not realizing he had gotten stuck on the way out.

Then, on the twenty eighth day since the accident, Charlie's eyes opened. I was in his room at the time, watching the mounted TV and munching on a pack of Double Stuffed Oreos I had just purchased from a vending machine a couple floors down. I looked over to see Charlie's eyes staring at the television screen. "Charlie!" I nearly shouted, unable to control my excitement and relief. But his head didn't turn towards me; his eyes just continued staring at the screen, with no emotion or awareness of me saying his name. Standing up, leaning over him and looking straight into his eyes, I asked (this time in a much softer voice), "Can you hear me?" Suddenly, a look of recognition appeared on his face, and with a slight smile he nodded his head. A couple seconds later, the nurse came into the room with a fresh blanket and a pitcher of water, and was nearly as elated as I was when she saw that Charlie was now alert and responsive. I had never experienced a moment of such exuberance in my whole life. Charlie was back, and in a mere five minutes, I had gone from hopeless dejection to a feeling of overwhelming delight.

The next week, a little over a month since our near-fatal collision, Charlie was released from the hospital. It was my primary desire and goal to get our lives back to the way things were prior to the accident as soon as possible. After the first few days, things seemed to be moving in that direction, as we found ourselves once again enjoying a game of one-on-one basketball in my mother's driveway, or sitting at Big Bucks, laughing at the idiosyncrasies of the local ranchers as they strolled in after a long day on the pasture. But things were not the same. Something had changed in the way that Charlie spoke, not just to me, but to everyone around him. While we sat there, observing people as we had on so many prior occasions, he began noticing things about them that he never had before. A faint sigh from a woman's voice somewhere in the far end of the bar, and without hesitation, Charlie would confidently conclude, "She received a call from her mother just this morning. Her aunt was diagnosed with terminal cancer and doesn't have long to live." There was a certainty in his voice as he would meticulously detail the events occurring in the lives around us in a precise and articulate way. At first, I didn't think too much about it. I reasoned that having come so close to death, Charlie was using the possible tragedies and triumphs of other individuals as a reflection of his own recent suffering, and was starting to notice even the minutest details in his surroundings as a way to begin living life to its fullest.