Diez Anos con Jim Thomson (Chapter 8)

Chapter (8) Dead and Waiting

Jim was in a dangerous, ugly rut, asleep on the floor of a storage unit. He never left home except to go to practice twice a week, where he consistently flushed his body with alcohol.
Asleep he was, on the floor after practice.
“Jim!” Bobby said. “Get up.” Bobby was preparing to leave and lock the door.
“No,” Jim said, “I’ll sleep here.”
“Alright. Lock it when you leave,” Bobby said, as he walked once more outside to his truck.
Jim changed his mind. He and Bobby crossed paths as Bobby was entering for one last thing.
“I thought you were staying here,” Bobby said.
“No. I’m alright.”
“Dude you’re sloshed. Let me drive you home.”
“No, I’m good,” Jim said, as he reversed his car down the alley.
“You’re going to kill someone! Or yourself.”
Bobby knew he’d done this too often. You can only beat the odds so many times. If you drive completely drunk, you could go thirty years and never have a problem, but eventually your number will come up, and you’ll go down.
Jim lived in Fruita twenty miles away. He had no problem finding the interstate and winding his way west. The problem was his droopy eyes. He set the cruise at seventy five. Five minutes into his drive on the interstate, he was out. He peeled off to the right when the highway veered left. A large irrigation ditch and a bumpy field met Jim’s car abruptly. His car turned three times end over end, and landed upside down eighty feet from the interstate. He came to, hanging from his seatbelt, with empty beer cans around his head. He released his belt and found his way out the window and to the roadside. He sat on asphalt and waited in pain. Within moments, law enforcement arrived to assess the situation, followed by EMS.
I was told a couple days later at college between classes.
“Did you hear about Jim?” Aaron said.
“No,” I said.
“He fell asleep at the wheel and wrecked his car off the interstate. He—” Aaron stopped as if he had something in his throat. I thought Jim was dead. For an instant, as Aaron struggled with the next word, I was sure of it. I felt the weight of those words without hearing them. “He’s in the hospital with a punctured lung and other injuries.”

Dead and waiting. A friend saw me dead and waiting in a vision. He saw all of us. I remember the fear transferred into me as he recalled the vision. A vision of hell. What am I waiting for? Why don’t I know? Commitment to just less than failure.