08-02-05 - 5:54 p.m.
ode to all the pollyannas of the world;
one minute you're admiring beautiful nevada clouds caused by a beautiful nevada thunderstorm during one of those dramatic nevada sunsets, and you're thinking, wow, remember this, and the next moment you're inside a car, in the backseat next to a beautiful giggling baby in a carseat, and the car takes a tumble, it rolls, falls, and lands upside down in a cement canal filled with water. you're dangling, trapped by a strangling seatbelt and you look over and the baby is silently staring down at the headliner of the car, which used to be above her head. you've been screaming, because this is what you do, even on rollercoasters and especially in tumbling cars, but now you're just disoriented and panicked and aware of water rising to your ankles, and the kids in front are struggling, disoriented and panicked because their doors won't open, and water is rushing through the smashed windshield and they somehow manage to roll down windows and force themselves out of the humming car. and once the baby is hurriedly unbuckled and passed through a window and you squeeze yourself through an opening too small for a kid, and everyone is alive and the daughter who just last week tried to end it all by sticking her head in an oven is weeping, startled by how fleeting and fragile life can be, you stand weak-kneed, looking at the car upside down and nose first in the dirty canal, and you too want to weep, startled by how fleeting and fragile life can be, but instead you just hold the giggling baby and wait for the police to find you, thinking;
oh great, another fucking setback.