Destiny

Teresa walked dreamily along the narrow winding roads of St James’s Square in London on her way to lunch with a friend. She put one foot out into the road at Duke street without looking. A horn blew and she looked up, startled, pulling her foot back. The driver shouted. “I nearly ran you over then,” shaking his fist.

Shit, she thought, I could have broken my leg. Then I wouldn’t be able to go on holiday, and it might have gone septic; and I might have got gangrene and the doctors might have to saw my leg off. Her imagination went wild. She was 17.

Through the years she always took great precautions when crossing the road, especially with her children.

Then she went to live near to her daughter Jemima and her little family. The the only way she could visit them was to cross a busy main road, right on a bend with no pavement on either side.

The road was the main artery from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland. Great trucks roared up and down with logs, tethered onto the open trailers, heavy farming equipment and people sped to work around the bend. Motor bikes did not reduce their speed and weekend sports car drivers loved to tear along at top speed.

As each car or truck sped by instead of just using her skills to judge the distance between the each vehicle and how much time she had to get across the road, she could imagine the biff of the car striking her on the side; and what it would be like to have the air punched out of her lungs; and then flying into the air to her fate.

Then as the months went by to her horror she could actually feel her body being hit and tossed to the back of the car into the path of a racing truck.

She was able to dismiss the feeling and bring herself back to reality, crossing the road at the right time and concentrating on getting to her daughter to help her with her grandsons.

Teresa had been looking forward to having a much closer relationship with her grandchildren and now she was here to see them every day, hearing their wishes, their dreams, what they had done at school, and the difficulties they had with other children; and she gave her daughter a break to have some quality time on her own.

Teresa did not mention her problem with the road to her daughter.

The insight got worse and worse each time she crossed. One day as she stood on the bend of the road in front of the turning where her daughter lived, a lumbering truck came round the bend at top speed. The driver, way up high, unable to notice Teresa’s anxious face. The truck hit her. Biff, the air was pushed out of her lungs. She spent a few seconds stuck on the front of the truck, then her body fell and was dumped on the road. The pain was intensely unbearable. She was in a nightmare of blinding pain, sharp lights of blue and purple came into her consciousness. Her heart pumped too fast for her body to bear.

Then the truck lumbered over her; and another car sped round the corner and ran over her kidneys, then the next car and the next car. She prayed for death but had no reprieve. None of the drivers saw her.

Thirty minutes later her daughter anxiously walked to the end of her country lane and saw her mother in a crumpled heap on the grass opposite her. She crossed the road. Her mother was dead. There was a look of fear on her face. There were no scratches or cuts on her body. There was no cause for her death, but she was dead.