This is a true story
The weather was bitterly cold, and it was sleeting,
somehow fitting weather two days before Christmas,
even for mild southern Arkansas. The increasingly slick
roads made my husband, Simon, and me nervous—but
after an almost four-hour drive to my parents, we had
just twelve more miles to go. Then we hit an icy patch on
a bridge, and I thought, “We’re dead,” as the car veered
toward the rail.
The long-nosed 280 ZX ricocheted back and forth
between the railings and stopped abruptly against a
roadside signpost, halting a thirty-foot slide down a steep
slope. I looked down, barely noticing the white-tipped
brown grass, which stuck up in spiked wintry splendor. I
wondered how we came out unscathed. Although the car
was totaled, we were fine, including Suzy, our family cat,
who I had been holding in my arms.
Simon’s door was stuck, and he reached for mine. I
said, “Wait a minute until I get a better grip on Suzy.”
Unfortunately, by the time I got this statement out, he
had already flung my door open. Suzy was gone in a
flash.
We tried calling Suzy, but when she didn’t come, we
weren’t too concerned since we figured she was hiding
under the car. Later, the policeman who assisted us
also helped search for Suzy with his flashlight, but to no
December 2013 | 17