Murder by Text

I repost story occasionally to further awareness

The warmth on the back of my hand, coming to my senses, is the touch of a nurse’s hand. “You’re okay, Mr Jackson. Try not to be alarmed. You’ve been involved in a serious car accident. You’re doing fine; try not to move,” she says, giving the back of my hand a pat.

I’m not sure I understand this as the blur over my vision clears, revealing her shape, the smile on her face, the brown hair, hazel eyes, and the tilt of her head wearing a nurses cap.

My inner voice is thinking ‘accident.’ The nurse’s voice sounds out there somewhere, an echo, hollow, and distant, yet she is right here, right by my side, holding my hand. I ask myself if there’s pain? I try to feel for pain but feel only numbness — paralyzed? I panic as this thought sends a reverberating shiver through my body, but only as far as my waist.

“You’re fine, we’ve given you a little something to help you relax, okay? You might feel slightly panicked, maybe not feel your legs at the moment, but everything is as it should be, do you understand?”

I nod, trying to reason why I feel no sensation in my legs. I can feel the nurse’s hand on mine, so why no feeling in my legs? I try to remain calm. The nurse is saying everything is okay, no need to panic, just keep calm. I feel a coldness descending.

“Stay with me now,” she says, increasing the rubbing sensation’s strength on the back of my hand. “I have someone who needs to ask a few questions, do you feel up to it?”

I feel afraid, numb, getting cold, and will answer questions to take my mind off the thought that I can no longer feel anything below my waist.

“Sure, I think I’m okay. I am okay, aren’t I?”

“Of course you are, just relax. I’ll be right here,” the nurse says softly, smiling and beckoning with a movement of her head. I grip her hand with my fingers.

“I’m sorry to see you this way. I need to ask a few questions. The nurse tells me you’re doing okay, out of danger. That’s good.” It is a deep resonating make voice.

Information is cascading, like a waterfall through my mind. Out of danger? Was I going to die? “I can’t feel my legs,” I say, and hear the nurse chime in.

“You will. I promise you. Perhaps a few minutes, that’s all, and your legs will be fine. Try to answer the policeman’s questions.”

Policeman? I didn’t think, didn’t understand, didn’t realize until nurse says the word and then see his jacket, the cap under his right arm, a notebook in his left hand, white shirt, black tie, smart, official, authoritative, and feel another shrinking of cold enter my stomach.

“Do you remember your name?” He asks, looking down at his notebook, his pencil poised.

“Timothy Jackson.”

“Your home address, Mr Jackson?”

“17 Whitechapel Road, sir.”

“Do you recall leaving home, Mr Jackson.”

I have no feeling in my lower body. I can hardly think straight.

“No…no… I don’t.”

The policeman leans over toward the nurse, out of sight, having a whispered word in her ear. I hear the sound of whispers, like a moth caught in my head. I try to look back, pushing my neck into the pillow, stretching my eyes upward, back over my head, but cannot see, only hear the fluttering of mouths speaking inaudibly.

The policeman returns into vision. “Mr. Jackson, I must give you grave news. The car you were driving, it mounted a pavement near your home. I’m afraid a mother and a child were killed.”

The pressure of blood sluices down my neck, away from my head. Nausea overtakes my stomach. I feel a blue depth approaching, then washing over me.

“Mr Jackson… Mr Jackson… it’s okay, gently now… gently… you’re okay…” And again, I feel the nurses hand gripping mine, tightly as my head is exploding with the news, barking bouts of pain entering and leaving in cycles of agony. Dear God, what have I done? My brain can hardly control thought, it runs wild, why… why me… what happened?

The nurse helps tilt my head forward. I sip at the water, feel its pass my lips, but can’t swallow. The water fills my mouth, seeping back between my lips, running down my neck, forming a puddle in the well below my Adam’s Apple.

‘Try to relax your body, Mr Jackson, you’re having a hard time breathing. In… out… in and out… keep in time with me please, big breath in…now out… and again…in… and out, that’s better, keep that going.”

The nurse again calls the policeman over. “You can continue now,” she says, squeezes my hand reassuringly.

“You don’t recall using the cell phone at any time, Mr Jackson?”

I feel more than a drift of guilt at the question. I try hard to recall, see myself at the wheel, and see the cell phone in my hand.

“No, sir, I do not recall anything. Cell phone?”

“Yes, sir. Eyewitnesses say you were seen driving without due care, you were texting on a cell phone. You definitely don’t recall this?”

There is a deep and dark resonance in his voice. He believes I do recall and not admitting to it. In the timbre of his voice, his accentuation on the words ‘definitely don’t recall’ says it all.

A mother and a child, dead. A fog thickens before my eyes. I feel profoundly alone and afraid. I’m alive, and a mother and child are gone because I was using a cell phone while driving.

How can this destruction happen to me, to them, innocently standing, walking, playing, when my car smashes into them. My thoughtless act. The cell phone. A text, to who, why? What could be so important that I would risk such havoc and death on someone for a text message?

The lamp above my head seems distant…far… far underground. What a senseless world, it was a text message. I wasn’t drunk. I wasn’t on drugs or medication, I had been texting on my phone and somehow driven into a woman and child. Nothing makes sense.

A voice pulls me from the depths. “Do you have a reading there, nurse?”

It is a distant question, somewhere out there, but audible. I turn my head.

“Yes, Mr Tomlin, it’s good reading. I think we are done here.”

“Good, I’m meeting my wife for dinner, it’s our twentieth anniversary.”

“Congratulations….. here, let me take that jacket from you.”

The nurse puts her hands to his shoulders while he turns from her and shrugs the jacket down his arms. I feel my legs twitch.

“Let me have a look, please….”

The policeman, now in shirtsleeves, wrenches the paper from the machine. “Hmmm… very good. I’ll sign him off. The traffic will be building up soon.”

The feeling is flooding into my legs. My head is clearing. Perfect sound, no echo, no sense of noise being far off.

“Do you feel you can swing your legs off the gurney?” She asks, her voice isn’t the same tender voice that reassured me. It seems distant, this time for real.

I hear the traffic. I hear people talking outside the room door.

“You’ll be remembering why you came now, Mr Jackson,” she says, busily signing papers at a desk.

I look around, feeling half-drunk, feeble, slightly nervous.

“Don’t worry. Congratulations. You now have a full driving license. You passed the simulated accident scenario. Your guilt level was excellent,” she says, her cap no longer on her head. “Just hand this to the receptionist when you leave. If you need a cup of tea, just inform her, there is a waiting room if you still feel a little unsure of yourself.”

By the time I reach the reception desk, I recall mother shouting good luck. “You’ll be fine, son. Pass this, and you’ll be driving. Phone me straight away. I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Bye, son.”

I remember dad driving me to take my final driving exam.

Suddenly, I feel a firm hand on my shoulder.

“Well done, son.”