A portion of my life, nearly five and a half years to be precise, I spent laboring for a wage. I worked in a printing shop. We produced local and national publications and advertisements by the tens of thousands and often times into the millions. My shift was six at night until six the following morning for 7 days in a row. The seven days following I did not work. Most of the time I worked extra days during my seven days off and at one point I worked nearly three months straight without a day off. I would get home from work in the morning by seven, and be in bed and usually asleep no later than eight. The alarm on my phone would wake me up at one or half past one in the afternoon. If something else didn't wake me up, a neighbor mowing grass, an obnoxious census taker ringing the doorbell. This cycle repeated over and over. I began to get by on less and less sleep. I started to wake up earlier and earlier. I played first person shooters game after game. My closest friend was a cat named Babygirl, her brother Otis was less so.
Perpetually exhausted. I toiled, in exchange for a decent paycheck and healthcare. I had the job for four months before I got married. After three years I began to loathe my employment. No room for advancement, no raises given regardless of merit. I could not get off the night shift. I grew weary. Along my route to work in the evenings I had to pass through a four way intersection with a traffic light. Once, as I waited for the green light to illuminate above me, and as I gazed down the oncoming road ahead and saw the building I worked in, I had an epiphany.
I glanced to my left and right. Green Ford, barrelling through the intersection, 45 miles per hour. Opposite direction and a light blue Toyota truck flies past me at an easy 50. I stare intently now at the light beckoning my halt. I stare at the glowing unwavering red. Did it just get a little less bright? Is it starting to extinguish and turn off? I ease off the brake pedal and the small Mercury Mystique gently begins to roll forward at a snail's pace. That light is definetly on its way out. I pull my foot of the brake pedal completely and slide over to the accellerator. The red bulb is done, the green starts to illuminate and I press the skinny pedal down. The car enters the intersection.
There is no horn only screeching sliding tires. Its close to dusk, and the headlights are what actually catch my eye. The downward flash and then the darkness as the beams drop from shining into my window to shining against the passenger side doors of the Mystique. The timing is impeccable, and the initial impact is textbook "t bone". My head and body fly towards the oncoming car, held in place by my shoulder and lap belt. Ear smashed against right shoulder hard, instantly hot with pain. Metal shreiks and bends, the glass in the windows doesn't crack. The glass pops, just one finite loud pop, followed by the rain of crystals and the din of groaning rubber and sheet metal and plastic. The passenger front door pressed inward as the car slides sideways. I see shadows dance across the headliner as my skull rolls backward on my neck and shoulder. I close my eyes.
When my eyes open again there is young man leaning over me, a pen light shining into my pupils. I say nothing as he questions me, I just stare at his fuzzily outilined face. My eyes close again. Bright light and white drop ceiling tiles. The smell, clinical and sterile and devoid of perfume. Hospital noises and hospital people wearing hospital clothes. I grin slightly before the pain rushes forward and I wince instead.
At least I do not have to go work tonight I think, as the morphine takes me away.
Years would pass, and everytime I aproached this intersection I had to fight the urge to stare at that glowing red lens and wait for it to dim. Some nights the urge was harder to fight than others. Heading to work was a test with but one question, is time away from the job worth the risk. It wasn't until I began having this same debate on the way home, to where my wife was, that I realized something was wrong.
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