The Fast and the Furious – NDE #1

All right, since you asked, I’ll run down the other times I faced off for a chess match with Death and dropped a bingo on a triple word score for the win. First in a series, and my first excuse to begin categorizing. Big day here at Goodbyecorp.

Spring 1990, Newark International Airport. It’s as good a place as any to die, I guess. My mom asked if I could drop her off at EWR and then drive myself to school. Does an 18-year-old have to think about whether he wants the keys to the car? Does an 18-year-old know what happens when you take that first turn at 80 mph? In this case you lose control of the Honda, which fishtails all over the two-lane parkway, causing even the take-no-prisoners Jersey drivers to slam on their brakes and give you plenty of room to destroy yourself.

After perhaps a quarter-mile of floundering the car ended up coming to rest about six microns away from the highway divider. I took a moment to place my heart back in my chest and reel my eyeballs back into their sockets. It wasn’t so much the thought of dying in a car accident that frightened me. It was the idea I might have wrecked the car, survived, and had to answer to Mom. That’s the death I was afraid of.
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