Microstory 33: Livewire (True Story III)

In third grade, I lived in the same town as my grandparents. Before that, we lived in a different state. After that, we moved about an hour away. My sister and I would spend a lot of time at their house, especially after school. One day, my grandfather and I were walking down 7th Street to get some ice cream. I hear some sort of loud noise and look up. An SUV is flipping over, twisting to its side, and crashing into a utility pole. A power line breaks away from its connection and swings down to the ground, landing about ten feet from us. It sparks and shakes around a bit. My grandfather shoots his arm out as a useless barrier between me and the wire, but we don’t move back from it. Looking back, I can’t imagine why we didn’t run. It quickly died and stayed in one place. I can recall only bits and pieces of what happened next. At some point we left, but I remember seeing the aftermath from the same vantage point the entire time. The man in the sedan opened his door and stuck his bleeding leg out while waiting for help. The two women in the SUV that had crashed into him and hit the pole had to be removed through the sunroof, and carried away using backboards. I distinctly remember thinking how lucky they were that their car even had a sunroof; and being sickened by the knowledge of an alternate reality where they didn’t, and died because the rescue took too long. I don’t think we ever discussed this with anyone afterwards. I can’t be sure we even ever told my parents. But I do think about it every once in a while, and mourn for the alternate reality where we left for ice cream five seconds earlier, only to suffer the wrath of that livewire.