200 MPH

An unusual and spontaneous injury causes a mother to take her daughter to the ER with their neighbor driving them. The story follows the before-during-after events of that drive.

By Javier Gonzalez

The stack of cardboard boxes found themselves piled in a Tetris-like formation. One or two had slight bends in their upright walls. That could be expected; they looked a little heavy. I was there, along with my siblings. The edge of the front yard, the little bit situated between the sidewalk and the cement curve itself, housed the stack in what appeared to be the Shelton’s old house.

“You see that,” I mentioned to everyone squatted with me. “That sign says ‘Red Rock Cove’. It’s where I grew up.” I pointed over to the end of the street. “Down there, past that bundle of trees and those tall bushes was my first home.”

We were searching for whatever we could find in those square prisms. Our van was parked about half-a-block away, situated for getting away purposes. It was already half full with various items. I didn’t know how they got there, what was inside them, or what purpose they served. A moment later, a car passed by us. We didn’t know who it was. We could only figure it was a neighbor, possibly the one who owned the boxes we were rummaging through.

After sorting through what we could, and placing those items into the van, we were just about to leave when my youngest sister, Rebecca, complained about something in her throat while in the car. It wasn’t C.O.V.I.D. Nor was it an allergy thing…or so we didn’t believe. She didn’t know what it was. So, she got out and began fumbling with her throat. I noticed my mom and dad freaking out.

It looked a little inflamed. They weren’t sure what to do. She shook her head when someone asked if anything else hurt. They asked if she was able to breathe properly or was having difficulty. Her shoulders shrugged and her head barely shook again.

 

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“Right, well, I’m taking her to the Emergency Room,” my mom mentioned. A neighbor had parked his car about 5, maybe 10, feet away from the van. “I’ll take you both, if you need a ride.” The van did look rather packed to the rafters.

“Of course, why thank you,” my mom may have replied. The steering wheel had a [H] logo on it, a Honda, matte grey and weathered down that my sister, mom and I ventured into. Though a sedan with its 4-doors, the year and upkeep were beyond my knowledge; nor did I care.

Combinations of blocked & half-crescent beige walls alike and concrete layers greeted us without disruption; nor did tons of other cruisers coasting alongside us. Winston, our neighbor and courteous driver with a good heart, knew how to navigate the intricate system of tunnels and winding turn offs…somehow.

I glanced at his odometer every few seconds as the highway and freeway gave a very “shining” image zooming by through the windows: 180 mph here. 200 mph there. Holy s**t, I thought to myself, not having any clue how this guy knew how to handle and steer this old rig, especially with all four of us contained inside.

He really meant for us to find that damn hospital! How did I know this? The old tank felt like a mini-roller coaster ride: zooming along the freeway at blazing speeds with cars as dots flashing by and 18-wheeler's looking like 6-inch sub sandwiches with bland colors; rolling upwards and sideways along the inside walls of tunnels and tube ways; the engine and vehicle carrying us roaring itself and all four of us up ramp-ways with so much velocity and acceleration we flew off the roadway itself for almost a full second at-a-time.

We must have missed at least half a dozen vehicles, autos and big hauling truckers alike. Narrowly missed. But was near impossible to tell given their collective blur, the crazy speeds we were traveling. After all, there was young woman whose breathing capabilities were in unknown jeopardy; each and every second counted. It seemed only natural, then, for our tiny tank to be streaming along at breakneck speeds.

Our little Honda freak machine arrived at the place we identified as the “hospital”. From then, spacey moments passed.

I could only presume whatever was going on with my younger sibling was attended to and cared for by the medical experts and ingenious minds practicing their crafts within the vague building just off to our right after we’d arrived at the curb.

It was then the whole frame of that sequence changed perspective. A blurry, static-like square frame slowly emerged from the corners of my eyes. The window of vision crept into a background image, faded and pixelated. A simultaneous moment later brought the hard plastic frame into perspective.

 

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My figure was seen walking among the check-out lanes with the aisles just beyond yonder. Red polo's, jeans and slacks filled some of the space above the counters. Vague shirts and figures of living people comprised the rest of the frame. I walked among the on-looking spectators going about their routine business; they paid me no more attention than I did them.

The backroom area contained about 3 walled sets of lockers, two tables and some chairs. Plus, there was a door with some papers attached to its window. Must be the employees’ lounge, I thought to myself. And a small, grey 2001 squared-prism model Panasonic TV, attached to a leveraged platform using a 4-holed screw-and-nut interlocking rigged plate, remained securely attached to its leverage just hanging off the wall, connecting wires and hooks keeping it locked.

There was no way the managerial office folk were going to allow that thing to randomly fall on one of their workers’ heads or bodies, causing unknown personal injury, I noted to myself. No way would that be allowed to happen.

But I reminded myself that that wasn’t my main concern, not even in that moment. Hardly.

I did manage to overhear some voices chuckling in bewilderment at apparent TV news coverage coming from that same Panasonic box depicting scene sequences of a car shooting through the freeways and nearby traffic “only moments ago”. It actually and almost could have passed for some intense and extremely well-designed previews from a special effects team putting together sequences for the next blockbuster film coming out that summer.

However, such was not the case.

The voices, I could have sworn, belonged to Gavin Milton and Virginia Carter-Milton, family-friends and good people to know, no matter your walk of life. “I can’t believe that just happened,” one of them said, an earnest reaction given the nature of the coverage. “I know. That’s definitely not something you see every day, is it?” the other replied in simple conversation.

“No,” I said in a nonchalant manner; plainly. “No, it’s not. I would know because I was just in that car. And now, I’m here.”

They both looked at me, even more bewildered, wondering how the hell someone could go from that car fiasco to casually walking into a backroom as I was. At least their mouths weren’t half-dropped to the ground.

“How...?” Virginia began asking.

“...I have no idea either,” I responded, quite quickly. That footage was taken a few hours ago. It was a hell of an experience. Now, though, I’m here. I’m here.”

Author's Note

Any response, feedback or input otherwise is fine and welcomed should you feel inclined.

Reviews

[JayG]

Since you enjoy writing so much, but are stuck in place because of the most common misunderstanding among hopeful writers, I thought you might want to know. Just bear in mind that what I have to say is unrelated to your talent, the quality of your writing, or the story. But the magnitude of its effect on the writing is huge. So...

To see how great an effect, look at the opening of the story, not as the author—who knows the situation, the setting, the characters, and, their backstory before reading the first line—but as a reader who has only the knowledge and context you provide:

• The stack of cardboard boxes found themselves piled in a Tetris-like formation.

1. “The” stack? How can we have a specific stack when we don’t know where we are, or what’s going on?
2. “Found themselves?” How can something without the ability to perceive “find itself?”
3. “Tetris-like?” As in the look of the screen when filled, or…? You know because you have a visualization of your intended image. The reader may never have played Tetris. And, why does it matter that an unknown number of boxes of unknown importance and size are in an unknown place, if no one is viewing them and making decisions based on them?
4. What’s going on? You know. And you know why you placed this in the first line. But think of a reader who lacks that, and is is saying, “What?” Given that there is no second first-impression, clarifying later won’t help them here.

In short: were this the first line of a submission the rejection would come here. Not happy news I know, but it is something we need to take into account. In writing, context is everything.

• One or two had slight bends in their upright walls.

In what universe does a reader—who is deciding if they want to commit to reading a given story—care that a cardboard box in an unknown location has a “slight” bend in its walls? This is detail, not scene-setting. Movement isn't action, and detail isn't story. Unless someone is paying attention to it as part of decision making it doesn't matter. And if they are, they have to notice it before it can appear. Reverse that and the reader is with the storyteller, not the one living the story.

• The edge of the front yard, the little bit situated between the sidewalk and the cement curve itself, housed the stack in what appeared to be the Shelton’s old house.

Look at this as someone who just arrived. We don’t know who we are. We don’t know where we are, or what’s going on, or the year, or the planet. So what in the hell is the “cement curve?” What is the “little bit?"

Because you began writing with a visualization of the scene, you describe things within the image you held. And when you read it, your mind automatically fills in the detail you left out because it seemed obvious. But ONLY you can do that.

You know why these unknown people are there, where "there" is, and why it matters. They know, too. Perhaps everyone in the story’s city knows. You know what a “square prism,” is, and all the rest. But the reader has no access to your intent or knowledge, that picture you never present, or, why any of it matters. But they must, or they're just reading a report of the form, "So this is what can be seen...this happens...then that happend...and you need to know..."

In short, you’re focused on what matters if-you’re-writing-a-report: facts. So you talk about what there is to be seen, and events, and background, because that’s how you were taught to write a report or an essay. And so, of necessity, this reads like...a report. It has to because the only writing techniques you own are the fact-based and author-centric writing skills we’re given in our school days and they prepare us for the kind of writing employers require: nonfiction. They're meant to inform, and and the voice of the narrator is dispassionate because while that narrator might talll the reader how someone being talked about speaks, they can't tell the reader how the narrator would read the lines aloud. Have your computer read the story too you. It's a useful editing tool to pick up awkward phrasing or missing punctuation. It also forces you to see what's on the page, rather than what you intended to be there but didn't type.

But that approach to presenting fiction is the result of the misunderstanding I mentioned, which is pretty much universal among hopeful writers. Because we're not aware that there is an other approach, we make the assumption that the word “writing” that’s part of the profession, Fiction-Writing, refers to the kind of writing we know, and spent so much time perfecting. But in reality, it refers to the professional skill-set of the fiction-writer, which is emotion-based, character-centric, and designed to provide the reader with an emotional, not an informational experience—an approach to writing that wasn’t mentioned by our teachers, because professional knowledge is acquired IN ADDITION to the general skill-set we collectively call, “The Three R’s.”

Did a single teacher spend even a minute on the difference between POV as expressed by which personal pronouns we use and viewpoint—which is what it means to a writer? No. So in this you use first person, but only to make the narrator—who is alone on stage from start to finish—seem to have once been the one who lived the story. But who cares if they are or aren’t? Telling is telling, and the reader expects us to make them live the story so deeply that if someone throws a rock at the protagonist the reader ducks. Did any teacher mention that, or that, as E. L. Doctorow observed: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” No. In fact, because they never studied to become a fiction-writer no one ever told them. My sister is a teacher, and convincing her that the kind of writing she was teaching was useless for fiction was one of the harder tasks I've accomplished.

So it’s not your fault. Pretty much every manuscript I received from a client, and 95% of what I see on any writing site, was submitted by someone suffering that misunderstanding. But…

Since the day you began to read, you’ve chosen fiction that was created with those professional tools. We don’t see the decision-points, of course. As they say, "art conceals art." So reading teaches us about those skills as much as eating makes chefs of us. But we do see, and expect, the result of those tools being used—as others expect to see it in OUR work. And I know of no better reason for acquiring our writer’s education.

There are lots of resources available: Workshops, conferences, retreats, etc. But the easiest one to access is your local library’s fiction-writing section. It holds the views of top writers, publishers, and teachers. So time spent there is time well invested. Without it you’ll never know why a line like, “Susan smiled when she saw Jack come into the restaurant,” should be avoided.

For an overview of some of the major differences between the approach to fiction vs. nonfiction, you might dig around in the articles in my WordPress writing blog. And if they make sense, I suggest you pick up a copy of Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer. It’s an older book, but I’ve found none better at presenting and clarifying the nuts-and-bolts issues involved in creating prose that sings to the reader. Books like Donald Mass’s, Writing the Breakout Novel, and others, will advise you on matters of style, but Swain will provide the foundation, the tools, and the knowledge of what they can do.

In fact, the site I link to below, for unknown reasons, is providing it free. So grab a copy before they change their mind.
https://ru.b-ok2.org/book/2640776/e749ea

So…was this even remotely close to what you were hoping for? I’m pretty sure it isn’t. But, you can’t use the tool you don’t know exists, or, fix the problem you don’t see as being one. As Mark Twain put it: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

Given that, I thought you might want to know.

Hang in there, and keep on writing. It never gets easier, but it is useful to be confused on a higher level.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

[StoriesGuy14]

Went through and read your entire review JayG, Mr. Jay Greenstein. Thank you for your perspectives. I agree with you: many writers, myself included to certain extents, form their ideas and voices based upon what schools and classes "teach & suggest" are the important & fundamental skills for work-based writing (non-fiction, as you put it). I know my ideas deserve the attention & time necessary to be developed further, yes. I also realize there are many aspects to writing well that I seek when pursuing my craft. That being said, I'll continue publishing things here knowing there are possibilities for growth and improvement. If you wish to provide feedback on them, I would appreciate that just as much.

Regards,
Javier

[JayG]

You're posting, not publishing. It's only publishing in the sense that having placed it where anyone can read it, so you've lost first-serial rights. But given that since you posted your first story, in June of 2016 only two people have replied to a story, you might want to think about what it takes to please the reader.

There's an unspoken contract between writer and reader. They give of their time, and perhaps money, and in return we're supposed to please them with that writing.

Again and again you ask, "Any feedback & review, tips and input would be appreciated and welcomed." Yet it's not. When I did take the time to reply, your response is pretty much, "I hear you, but I don't care."

That doesn't seem to be the most productive way of learning to please the reader. And in this case, someone who has taught at workshops, owned a manuscript critiquing service, signed seven publishing contracts, and has 26 novels in the market, took time he didn't have to give you, because YOU requested it.

So, you got me again. Ah well...

[StoriesGuy14]

I have no argument with you, sir. I really don't.

The way I work & operate, especially in my writing, best is I listen to feedback and take a bit more time to process what it means before going back to the original work and make edits, create a second draft, etc. Thus, there was no second/corrected draft I posted of my original piece.

Yes, I apologize for using the word "publishing" versus "posting".

I'm aware my writing needs improvement as you well pointed out, yes. I looked at the first few lines, for example, and realized I told the reader absolutely nothing about what the boxes & their contents really were, how they related to my story and how my various characters could connect to my readers.

In honesty, I just wrote the story to write it out. The thinking about it, with YOUR help, will come soon. And yes, I certainly appreciate that someone like yourself has taken YOUR time to provide input to me. I especially admire that you have 7 signed publishing contracts with roughly half the # of novels as, say, Mr. Stephen King has on the market.

I will look at my work and improve it for not only my own benefit, but for my readers' enjoyment as well.