THE MINERVA PROPHECY
PROVOCATIVE TALE OF AN URBAN ARTIST
“A crash awakening”
Chapter one
Author: Tameka Contee-Johnson
I had just left the most awesome party imaginable and I was all sweaty and tired. But, I still felt like keeping the party going. Plus, Derrick Sanders danced with me all night and he is so hot. Every girl wants a piece of him, but he wants me. “So, hot, sweaty, got my freak on Mimi had the time of her life and handled her business nearly all night with one of the finest men around town”, is what I said to myself repeatedly as I walked to my car. Inside, I turned the music up as loud as I could to bring the party with me. While driving the music was so loud that my heart was beating to the drumbeats, and my head was spinning too. I had a few drinks and I was feeling oh so good, driving and partying and feeling a little sleepy, all at the same time. Fifteen minutes passed and I had thirty more miles to drive before reaching my destination, home sweet home. My eyes gotmore and more tired and it was hard keeping them open. So, I rolled down the window to get some fresh air. But it didn’t help. Nothing that I did would help me to stay focused and awake. Suddenly a loud bomb sounded, like a truck backfiring, and I nearly jumped out of my seat. My eyes were closed tight and I had my hands over my ears and holding each side of my head. I was scared to look to see what had happened. Slowly, I opened my eyes. What I saw shook my soul with a wave of horror, that ricocheted through every bone in my body. Everything seemed so much like a dream. Was I dead? I closed my eyes and shut them as tight as I could, almost choking them with a tight grip of pitch blackness. I could not move any part of my body from the neck down. A feeling of numbness and tingles had me feeling almost lifeless, like I was having an out-of-body experience. But I knew that I was not at all dead because something was warm that felt like it was wiggling down my left leg and my socks were soggy. I thought, “Perhaps I was so scared that I peed on myself from the accident”. I knew that I had been in a car accident. That much was clear. There was a cream colored airbag between me and the steering wheel. Because I started to open my eyes just a little at a time, and I saw it and felt it pressing against my thin body; and a cloud of smoke was floating above my head like a hallo of feathers dancing. My vision was blurred and my head was light and dizzy. My hearing was also muted, perhaps from the sound of the sudden impact that rang like one hundred sticks of dynamite. And my ears kept ringing and ringing and ringing. They just wouldn’t stop no matter how much I plugged them with my pointing finger and wiggled them trying to unstop them and to help the ringing escape. But I could not stop my ears from ringing. I could not stop my heart from racing at supersonic speed. Nor could I shield my eyes from the brightness of a huge piercing light ahead. All of what I had just described happened in a matter of seconds. My car crashed into something. I was alone. No one was around to help me. The area was pitch black. A bright light was shining on me and I could not see clearly. My ears did not work. My eyes were hurting. I could not feel my legs. My hands were shaking like I was holding a maxi super doper vibrator. And eventually, my eyes started to develop clearer vision. I tried to open my eyes wider and wider until the vision was natural. I began looking around. Then I looked down. Oh My God! I shouted in a horrified voice. OH… MY… GOD! Oh my God is this what happens when you die? My hands started to caress my body. Searching for life seemed so far fetched. When I had finally felt my whole self, I started to search for a way out. My car had smashed slam into the back of a big humongous parked Mack-truck. It had been parked illegally under a bridge. Finally, my thinking was becoming clearer and clearer. I realized that I had fallen asleep behind the wheel. OH MY GOD, I screamed again. The feeling of wetness was a pool of blood around my feet. I felt wetness between my toes. Oh no! What is this? The front end of my shiny black BMW was smacked, smashed completely and chrome pieces were shattered everywhere. I tried moving my legs to push the door open. More and more my senses were returning and more and more I realized how lucky I was to be alive. Glass was everywhere, even in my eyelashes. Slowly, I began picking chunks of glass from my chest, arms, legs, driver’s seat and then clothes. I could not stop trembling. I was so grateful to be spared. After carefully unlocking my seat belt, I moved a few inches forward and look to either side of me through my messy bangs. I notice a red car slowly approaching. It was a young couple pointing and hollering, Oh No, Oh Snap, That Car Is Jacked Up! They repeated over and over again. My brain was set on fire and fright engulfed me with fear. I gotta get out! I gotta get out of this car and call the police! Yells bellowed from shouts to shrilling screams. With hands that were now shaking out of control, I managed to see a flicker of light on the floor of the passenger’s seat. I wiggled out of my seat enough to lean over on my left side to get my cell phone. I took my left hand and held my right tightly to stop the shaking enough to call 911. “This is the 911 dispatcher, Jim, what is your emergency, the operator answers in a robotic tone. “Oh my God, I was in an accident I am at Martin Luther King highway off of 50 East”. The operator told me to take a few deep breaths, calm down, and to tell him what I see.” Okay calm down we have the ambulance on the way, are you okay, the operator asks? Yes, I reply. Sounding a bit like she was underwater, are you by yourself, he quickly asks in a louder tone. Yes, I replied then I began to cry… please come hurry! The ambulance is on the way, he reiterates. It was so comforting to find my phone and even more comforting to speak to a live person after what just happened. She continued to talk I am sure only to keep me calm, but at that point, I was zoned out and more so concentrating on the pain I felt everywhere. I really didn’t know the severity of my injuries, but I was alive and talking which was GREAT! While trying to stay on the phone I carefully looked at the areas close to me to assure I had removed most of the broken glass and took another survey to make sure there weren’t any objects in strange places that could potentially harm me. I really didn’t know the condition of that big gigantic Mack truck that was ahead of me, but whoah those light, those lights were blinding. I manage to open the car door; it felt so good to be alive I thought as I felt a refreshing gust of wind instantly catapult the white smoke that once filled my tiny vehicle to the high above heavens. Tears of joy were now flowing down both sides of my flushed and bloodied cheeks. My five-foot four-inch frame seemed pretty tall as I finally managed to stand against my mangled vehicle. I didn’t have shoes on because driving while wearing mile-high designer heels just wasn’t happening. So carefully I placed one foot in front of the other twisting, trying not to further imbed the glassremnants into my skin. My cell phone still in one hand and waving to passing cars for help with another I know I left behind tiny footprints of blood on the pavement, but I didn’t care all I knew was I had to get… away…from…that…car. Then suddenly after a long moment of slow motion and silence, the sweet sound of sirens is heard from miles away and roared louder and louder as they grew closer in proximity. The vast solid armored trucks screeched and raced to my aid, finally standing firm and tall as mountains and they’re rapidly racing red lights shined bright, as it lit the highway. I was quickly examined by the paramedics and rushed onto a stretcher. The intense fatigue that I felt BEFORE this explosive accident instantly grew stronger. Within seconds I was lifted and swept off my feet into safety and with care and passion transported toward the back of the ambulance. My life had been spared I thought as I comfortably rested my head upon a comfy ultra white sheet, praying the untouched fibers would somehow absorb the pain I felt. Compared to the traumatic roller coaster ride, I had just experienced that comfy white sheet was my new best friend. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed my right car blinker was still on. The stretcher bumped one rescuer’s thigh then bumped another while my bruised and limp body bumped and jumped with it as they carried me away. My eyelids grew heavy and the starry night sky was the last thing I recall seeing. The rattling of tiny chrome objects and a nice voice saying you’re gonna be okay was all I needed to hear, I then drifted slowly off to sleep.
