I was waiting for the traffic light to turn green when suddenly something came falling down the sky and landed right on the middle of the hood of my car with a loud “THUD”. Even though I could see it beforehand of the collision, it caught me off guard that I could barely stop myself from screaming out loud. But I was glad that I could prevent myself from letting out a loud cry at the time because I didn’t want to tarnish my image in front of the growing crowd. However, now that I think about it, the cause for my “sudden silence ” was most likely due to the confusion that I had to fight through to recollect my thoughts. 

The car bonnet was severely dented. It took me a couple of seconds to assess the severity of the dent as it was barely visible through the thick layer of smoke seemingly coming out of the hood. On top of the visual constraint, my head was ringing very loudly with an added irritation; a deafening echo. I began to cover up my ears with my hands hoping it would go away. But naturally, it didn’t have any effect whatsoever. A couple of seconds later, I could feel a gradual and continuous drop off of the volume level which helped me immensely towards my initial goal of ”gathering myself together”. But then a new enemy emerged out of nowhere reshaping the situation from bad to worse.

The numbness in my legs began to fade away within a couple of seconds. Though I was happy about it at the beginning, I was forced back into reality, as if an evil deity proving the point of “how wrong I was at the moment”. An extreme pain began to crawl up my legs, through my spine, directly to my brain. “My brain’s about to explode”, though I wanted to shout it out loud, I was unable to do so. Turning my fear into a nightmare, I could smell the burning stench of flesh at the time. In the heat of the moment, my mind wandered off to unrealistic conclusions like “ Oh! I’m being electrocuted with a million volts “ or “ I’m being burnt alive. Please make it stop!”. Though it hurt like my brain had penetrated with a thousand needles at the same time, the “stench” must have been coming from the burning wires of my vehicle, I later theorized. But the next thing I saw, nearly had me fainted. The floorboard of the vehicle and the paddles were completely covered in blood. My blood!

A metal stake shaped object had completely pierced through my right foot. The overwhelming pain combined with the visual image of that freaky and bloody injury was so terrifying that I could break free from the silencing spell that had been cast on me by that evil deity. At long last, I was able to let out a scream which somewhat relieved me from the pain. Even though this rendered my previous attempt not to scream like a “damsel in distress”, in vain, I couldn’t help but panic this time. However, I don’t think I screamed out loud for that long. Soon I could feel that someone was pulling me by my arm, forcing me out of the vehicle. Though what happened next is a mystery to me, later I hypothesized that I should have been blacked out due to the severe blood loss.

This horrifying incident took place way back in January. It had been a peaceful and uneventful day up until I stopped my car due to that forsaken red light. Is it karma or pure coincidence? “ That damn light pole! It just had to fall onto my car, didn’t it? “, I still curse at every light pole I see, even after all this time. “It’s only fair isn’t it? I mean, I got crippled for life after all”.

Penned By: Rtr. Pawara Gunathilaka (Editorial Member 2021-22)

Edited, translated and published by: RACSLIIT Editorial Team 2021-22