1) Small Children Should Never See Their Parents Backs. (True Story)
2) A Riveting Tale
3) On My Way
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Small Children Should Never See Their Parents Backs. (True Story)
I arose from my easy chair to take a gander out the window to see what I’d seen the last hundred times I’d looked that day. Outside, the sun shined bright and the humidity wrapped itself around you as if it were a winter coat. I had noticed some small children playing in the side yard of a home near mine. They were running around chasing each other, jumping from atop an old toy that I couldn’t quite make out what it was, climbing trees as high as they could without climbing gear, and fighting imaginary demons with small tree branch swords. The parents, I presumed, gathered under their protective two-story wooden shell, behind closed doors, where a single window A/C unit worked overtime.
My attention gravitated toward the west side of the home. My eyes passed a single child standing on the sidewalk at the corner slab, and then onto a small silver car lazily parked on the grass under a tall Oak; the shade from the Oak covered the car and the side of the home. The driver’s side rear passenger door was held locked in an open position as legs dangled half out. The person, whom the legs belonged, engulfed him or herself in conversation with the driver and another passenger-sitting shotgun.
My eyes were suddenly brought back to the young child whom they had passed on the way over to the automobile. The small child; no more than five, six, or even maybe seven years of age, wore shorts that extended past his knees, and a long T-shirt that almost reached the same length. He was on the slightly heavier side for a youngster of that age, but as with any young child, it was obvious he wasn’t ashamed of it. It looked as if he were fascinated with all the traffic on the very busy street before him. I watched in concern. That was definitely no place for small children to be standing by themselves. I waited for an adult from the silver car to pull him from the corner where he looked as if he felt invincible; nothing.
The boy inched his way farther and farther off the sidewalk and into the street to get an even closer look at the massive machines rolling passed him. The never-ending flow of cars, motorcycles, trucks, and semi-tractors with trailers traveled at speeds of twice, and even three times the posted speed limit of twenty-five miles-per-hour. This did not deter the young and naive. The motorist could only assume the child was waiting his turn to cross to the other side, but if they only knew what was to come they would have slowed to a crawl in anticipation of the boy’s intentions. This small-unattended child was either incredibly amazed by the amount of traffic, or the speed at which the traffic flowed passed him, or… he was simply tempting fate.
After stepping a foot or so into the street, what I like to call ‘Liberty raceway’, the youngster took off back toward the house, and between two of the many rotating vehicles that occupied the driveway day and night. I was relieved to see that the child made the smart decision in his curious mind, to choose life over possible death.
I felt the rush of certain injuries leave my body after the little guy ran away from the highway-like traffic. It all had happened in a matter of a few seconds. My dry mouth needed a well-deserved drink of water after that. I walked to the kitchen and retrieved a bottle of water from a newer version of the coolerator. The cool air from the refrigerator was a relief across my body, as it tends to heat up a bit from adrenaline flow. After a long swig of the clear liquid, I returned the bottle back to the door shelf. Out of curiosity, I glanced out the kitchen window and vetted the situation once more, just to assure that the young tyke had stayed away from the edge of what could have been certain death. To my surprise, the small child had not had enough of tempting fate. He had returned to the roadside, but in a different location, and was leaning in as if he were waiting for the perfect moment to test his distance again.
I hurriedly walked to my original location at the front door and began to assess the situation. However, by the time I reached the doorway, the small child had gained more confidence and had moved completely into the street. In a matter of seconds, I watched as he sidestepped his way into oncoming traffic as if he were entering into a dual. His knees bent, his feet spread, and his arms out to his sides. He was only missing the cowboy garb and pistols. There was no fear in his mind at this point. With traffic still at full potential and high speeds, this was sure to be an ugly, ugly turn of events. There was no chance of me reaching that child before something tragic would happen. I could only hope that the oncoming traffic was aware of an object in its path.
I noticed a small black all-road type vehicle approaching at what seemed like the speed limit, bearing down on the small child. I didn’t have time to cross my fingers and hope that the person inside the car had the child in their sight. The small boy stood steadfast. I could only assume the expression on his tiny face. It certainly could not have been that of fear. The opposite lane commuters continued at full speed as the child had blocked the path of oncoming traffic. I quickly asked myself if I were able to handle witnessing a horrible incident if something were to happen, but I didn’t have a choice, it all was happening so fast.
To my surprise and hopefully the surprise of the young boy, the person in the black vehicle had seen the youngster, and was able to stop in time; not more than twenty feet or so before him. The small child and the driver froze; locked into a staredown. It felt as if time stopped or moved in slow motion. What seemed like a very long time actually was only about ten seconds or so. He just stood there, temping the driver. I could only speculate on what was going through each of their minds during that time.
For this day, this little boy, this small innocent child, had tempted fate and had won. The parents of that lucky child had not had the slightest clue that their son’s favorite dinner last night, the story at bedtime, the hug and kiss goodnight, and the breakfast that following morning, could have been their last… together.
That little boy ran to the side yard after the blare of the car horn. The people in the small silver car relaxing under that big Oak… never moved a muscle. After the horn blast and the child ran to the side yard, an adult from within the house; not the child’s parent, stepped out of the house door and raised a hand to his friends in the silver car, thinking the horn blow was from them, and then he disappeared back into the house. Not having a clue of what had just transpired.
If you take anything away from this short story, let it be this: do not take your children for granted. Never Turn Your Back on Your Children.
The afternoon sky quickly became cloudy and mysterious. The wind picked up, and the limbs on the trees danced in convulsions. Streaks of flashing light shot across the sky, soon followed by the rumbling of invisible bowlers across the prairie.
A creature bucked and kicked and its reins shook wildly. “Woe…” Jeb yelled, trying to coax the beast that everything would soon be all right. Its eyelids opened wide and its eyes darted back and forth searching for the intruder from the sky. A bright light flashed as it hit the ground in front of them, and a thunderous boom shook the ground, challenging their stabilities.
Jeb held tight, the leather straps that held the varmint at bay, but it did no good. It stood on its hind legs and squealed aloud, and then fell back onto all fours. Jeb screamed at the large mammal, “Woe… boy,” as he tried to persuade the four-legged beast to move in the direction he wanted. The brute stood on its hind limbs once again as it kicked with its fronts. The straps around its large neck broke loose and freed the stirred animal. “Woe,” Jeb yelled, but it was too late, the bestial was already running wild.
Jeb reeled in the broken leather restraints as he watched the dark clouds roll across the sky. He listened to the crackling thunder speaking to him as he rushed to his leaky wooden shed. He threw the worn straps on the bench, and then frantically dug through a box that held the tool he needed. It was hiding at the bottom of the box like it was a secret to own one. He reached for it with his right hand and grabbed it gently. It was his favorite. It fit his hand as if it were specifically made for him. The grip felt good, and the solid feel of the lever felt tight as if it were still brand new. He reached back into the box and only found one round of ammunition. He picked it up between his thumb and index finger and fixed his eye upon it. I hope this works, he thought.
Jeb looked into the barrel of the tool to make sure it was clean, and not obstructed by debris. His hands trembled as he loaded it. He wiped droplets of sweat from his brow with one shirtsleeve as his eyes stared at the other hand gripping the tool. He jerked his head to his right to catch a glimpse of the monster run passed the shed door. The sound of hooves hitting the muddy ground came loud like stamping cattle, and then quickly faded. Jeb grabbed the leather straps from the bench and looked through a small hole at one end. He raised the tool that he had hoped would solve his problem. His hands shook as he crammed the small nail-like point through the hole. His eyes widened. He gave it one last look and then squeezed slowly until he heard the pop.
The muscular creature had calmed its rampage and moved slowly toward the opening of the shed. Jeb was shocked when he saw it coming and was amazed by its demeanor. The angry storm had faded as quickly as it arrived. The light show and rumbling had moved on to the next county. Jeb rushed to put the tool back into the safety of the box, and then with the leather straps in hand, he skittered for the door and threw the opening of the leather around the large head that protruded into the doorway. In a matter of seconds, the beast was again restrained, and Jeb the farmer was once more ready to plow his fields. The leather straps were securely fastened around the horse’s body, thanks to the help of a rivet gun, and a rivet that Jeb stored in a toolbox in his shed. 😉
Hello, my name is Duane, and I didn’t know that I was gonna be saving a life today.
Lunch was more flavorful today than it normally has been at the local Arby’s. The French Dip with Au Jus and the Classic Beef and Cheddar sandwiches have been my favorite for a while now. My usual table in the middle of the dining room was available, so I staked my claim on it. It had a three-hundred and sixty-degree view with hardly any interruptions.
It was a beautiful winter day full of sunshine and the temperature was nearing forty. The ground was covered with about six inches of snow from previous snowfalls, but at the end of many driveways, it was still two-to-three feet in height; and it was hard, frozen from when the plows clear the wet snow from the streets and ejected it from the blade landing it atop of an already solid pile of snow. After listening to the weather station earlier that day, I found out that we were in for another six-to-twelve inches come nightfall, but as everyone in Wisconsin knows, the weather can change as quickly as a squirrels mind does when it tries to cross the road.
After a relaxing thirty-minute lunch, my stomach was full and my pants were about to burst at the seams. My next stop was going to be at my sister’s house for another one of our teamwork efforts to try to save a failing piece of equipment. Me, being the do-it-yourselfer type, and because I enjoy repairing things, no matter what they may be, I volunteered my services, usually without reservations. She seems to keep me on my toes about the projects she finds us, and I usually don’t mind what it is because I think of it as being a learning experience.
After a full day’s work of disassembling and reassembling a front-loader washing machine to change a broken trunnion and wore-out shocks (it sounds like we were working on a spaceship), home was my next stop for some relaxation and a bit of music to fill my ear holes.
A brown recliner parked in such a way in my tiny living room, allows me to see up the road through one window and in front of my house through another. A security camera on my front porch points in the direction of the driveway, which shows me the corner of the house, the full length of the driveway with part of the front yard, and all the way across the street. This comes in handy when the music is too loud to hear the doorbell.
Usually, after a good meal, I’ll plant my keister in that recliner and turn on some music that keeps my head moving in a nodding sense. The music is usually loud enough and the bass pounding deep enough that it makes me feel like I’m sitting in a vibrating chair. I’m talkin’, enough bass to make the little hairs in your ear canals wiggle, and make it feel as if somethings climbing around in there (It’ll force you to dig your pinky finger in there so far that you think you’re gonna pull out something that’s trying to infest your brain). It always got me to thinking about what’s next on my agenda for the day (I laughed myself into a coughing fit when I wrote/read that last line in parenthesis with a deep southern drawl. Go ahead, try it, you know you want to, I‘ll wait…but I digress).
I’m a few songs in now and listening to one of my favorite girls, Blahzay Roze – Every Word, and believe you me, Blahzay, ‘I know every word that they spoken,’ too; well, we all do, really. From my recliner, I can watch the monitor for my security camera where it sits; just to the lower left of the front yard window and I can see just over the front window’s ledge where I can catch the tops of the moving vehicles as they pass by my house. I’ll usually toss my eyes around from each window and then down to the monitor as I’m groovin’ to the song that’s yelling at me. There wasn’t much traffic to watch on the monitor. It was about that time when all the day’s traffic seemed to disappear. It wouldn’t pick back up again until the nearby intermediate schools let out for the day.
I happened to be eyeballin’ the monitor when suddenly, snow began to hit the front of my house like I was in the middle of a snowball fight between giants, and these were not hand-size snowballs; they looked to be six to ten-inch clumps bombarding the front of my house and my front lawn. My eyes quickly darted from the monitor to the window, and then back to the monitor again. My eyes locked onto the monitor as my mouth hung. I watched as a car careened the snow pile on the far side of my driveway and launch itself. It began to rotate in mid-air toward the driver’s side just after it hit the beast of a snow pile. It completely cleared my driveway and all I could see was the bottom of what looked like a small sedan as if it were a picture hanging flat on a wall.
I grabbed my computer from my lap and thrust myself up from the recliner trying to get a glimpse out the front window, but by the time I was able to see out the window, the trunk had already taken out my mailbox. From there, I could only imagine that the car was lying on its side or its roof on my front lawn.
I parked my laptop on the arm of the sofa next to me and grabbed my phone off the end table. I instantly started to dial 911 as I long-stepped toward the front door. I flung the door open as I put the phone to my ear and was shocked at what was happening before my eyes; the vehicle was gliding on its side through the snow, and just when it reached the small descend at the end of my yard, it rolled onto its roof. It continued to slide over the cross street and into an embankment, which forced it back onto the street, sliding approximately fifty-feet farther before coming to a complete stop.
The screen door on the porch flew from its hinges as I went through it as if it were paper. The two steps leading down to the ground were non-existent as I leaped from the porch into the snow below. When the operator finally answered, I wasted no time listening to her prepared script. As I ran through the snow in my yard without a coat or shoes on my feet, I yelled into the phone, BELOIT, WISCONSIN, 6000 BLOCK OF LIBERTY, SEND EVERYTHING, CAR ROLLOVER, and I dropped the phone and leaped into the street in the direction of the car on its roof. I was aware that the 911-dispatch center recorded every incoming call, so I wasn’t worried much about her not getting all the information she needed.
There was no one that I could see or had time to see, coming to help rescue the occupants of the still settling cage. At full speed, I miscalculated my speed versus approach time and slipped on the dry street that was currently sprinkled with pebbles, sand, snow, ice, and small pea-size pieces of glass from every window that had blown-out during the cars landing. My jeans held up to the slide, but my shirt raised to reveal my side gut and ribcage skin; they were scraped raw, along with the palms of my hands from trying to stop myself, but there was no time to whine about my piffling injuries, I was more concerned about the passengers in the troubled vehicle.
After crawling back to the driver’s door, I hadn’t realized that I was resting my hands and knees on the broken glass as I asked the driver if she was okay. The pain that one should feel from kneeling on broken glass was the farthest thing from my mind. She screamed as she clawed at me through the missing driver’s door window. My mind could not unscramble her hollers.
“Please, calm down,” I said as I gestured with my hands.
“My babies,” she screamed.
I gazed at her as if she was just babbling until I heard the grumblings and squawks of an infant coming from the back seat. I put one hand on the driver’s arm to show her that I wasn’t leaving, while I leaned into the back seat window and turn my head upward toward the seat; my stomach sank. There I saw two car seats dangling upside down; both filled with babies searching the inside of the car trying to figure out what had just happened. Their faces were red as cherries from the blood rushing to them. They let out small cries for help to let someone know that they were there.
I returned to the driver and grab her face to turn it toward me so she would pay attention to what I was about to say. I stared into her eyes. “I’m gonna get your babies to safety. If you’re not hurt, please try to free yourself. As soon as your babies are safe, I’ll return for you.”
“Yes…thank you.” Her tear-filled eyes stared back at me.
“Everything is going to be okay. I’ll be right back; I promise.” I gently patted her arm. Her eyes somehow told me that she was much calmer knowing that I was moving her babies to safety.
I released her arm and crawled to the back seat door. The handle would not release the door latch. I checked the lock and then tried it again. After yanking on the door handle until I about pulled my arm from its socket or broke the handle off, I decided to try the passenger side instead. After checking the lock first, through the broken window, I pulled the handle and the door unlatched, but it only open about an inch.
The babies began to cry and get more irritated with their current situation. “It’s okay,” I said as I worked on the door.
“I can’t get it. I can’t get loose,” the driver yelled as she frantically pulled on her seatbelt strap.
I dropped to my knees and grimaced when I hit the glass beads on the ground; the pain shot up my thighs and into my back. Why isn’t there anyone else here to help me, yet? My mind yelled to me just after the pain spiked.
“Push the seatbelt button,” I yelled in her direction.
Just then, on the outside of the cracked windshield, a stream of fire dripped from the hood. My eyes opened wider then they had been, and the driver saw them open wider.
“What? What is it? What is it?” she yelled.
She turned her head to follow my line of sight. Then she saw it, a larger stream of fire dripped from the hood. She let out an uncontrollable screech.
“Oh my God, please, hurry…faster, please, faster,” she yelled increasingly louder as she tugged on the seatbelt strap trying to squeeze herself out of its tight grip.
After snapping out of my daze from looking at the fire, I stood and dug my fingers into the door jam and pulled with everything I had. The door moved a couple of inches, I pulled again, and it moved a couple of more inches. Finally, I changed my stance, reversed my fingers into the opening, leaned against the body of the car, and jammed my foot against the door and pushed as hard as I could, for as long as I could. “Arghhhh…” I screamed, as the struggle to open the door was proving positive.
The door opened enough for me to climb in, and I held the first child with one hand as I hit the release on the restraint. The baby dropped like a boulder into my hands. The weight was unexpected and the child forced my hands to fall completely to the roof of the car. The baby screamed at me as I pulled it from the car and ran it across the street to safety. I had no time to waste, but I didn’t know how to keep the baby from crawling around freely. My mind was working faster and faster to resolve this issue, and it finally came up with planting my body into the snow mound at the edge of the road to form a makeshift bassinette, and then I gently placed the baby inside it.
I ran back to the car, climbed in the back seat, and repeated the same thing for the second baby, but this time I was ready for when the child was released. I held it in my arms and looked toward the hood of the car; the windshield was almost completely black from the flames. Smoke was barreling out of the hood, and the driver was continuing to scream for my help.
“I’ll be right back,” I yelled as I looked at her drenched face. Her makeup had created black streaks from her eyes to her hairline, and her face was filled with so much blood that it looked purple. She had been hanging upside down and struggling for almost ten-minutes now, and there was still no sign of help on its way.
“I can’t feel my legs,” she cried as she reached for me.
I looked at her body; she looked short, and she must have weighed almost two-hundred pounds. Being physically fit was not one of my strong points, and I was certain that I could not lift two-hundred pounds of almost dead weight. I began to wonder if I was gonna be able to save her. I placed my hand on her arm. “Don’t worry, I’m gonna get you out of this; I promise.” While that promise was spoken from my lips, my mind was filled with uncertainty.
Suddenly, a loud thump came from the front of the car. The driver screamed. “I don’t want to die,” she pleaded. “Please…help me.”
Another loud thump shook the car.
I wasn’t sure what those sounds were, but I had to comfort her, somehow. “That’s just the tires,” I yelled. “You’re gonna be okay. I’ll be right back.”
“Please don’t leave me,” she yelled as her fingers stretched out for me.
“I’m not going to leave you. I need to take this baby to safety, and I’ll be right back.”
I crawled out of the door as the driver drastically tried to free herself. I ran the second child across the street and repeated my process to ensure its safety. The sounds of sirens getting closer filled my head, but I couldn’t wait for them to save the driver. They were still too far away and the flames were beginning to tornado. The whole underside of the car, which was now the top, was on fire. The flames were a jump over the rear axle away from the gas tank. The flames hypnotized me from across the street. The sound of a faint cry for help over the noise of the fire had woke me from the flames dance. My eyes dropped to the driver, she was reaching for me from across the street. I could only read the words ‘Please help me,’ coming from her lips.
I’ll admit, I was scared to death, but I couldn’t let anything happen to her; she needed me, and I was her only hope for survival. The babies cried and it pulled my attention toward them. I gave each one of them a stare, which was a promise that I would return with their mother. I ran back across the street and slid into the driver’s door, startling the driver. She grabbed my arm with all her strength and wouldn’t let go.
“Please, help me, God,” She called out.
It looked as if she was starting to hallucinate.
“You have to let me go if you want me to help you.”
“Please save me,” she cried.
I lifted myself to my hands and feet, scampered around to the passenger side, and climbed in through the open door. I reached up and forced my fingers into the red button of the buckle. I could not budge it. The only thing I could figure out was that the weight of the driver must have been causing the buckle to not spring open.
“Do you have anything sharp in here?” I yelled.
“I don’t…I don’t know; I don’t think so,” she said as she glanced around.
She grabbed my arm with the strength and grip of a wrestler. “Please, don’t let me die like this; I’m begging you, please.”
The desperation in her voice and the look in her eyes made me think; if I could, I would take her place so then I’d be the one trapped in that car instead. She has two babies for God’s sake; they needed their mother.
“What is your name?” I asked as I looked around the inside of the car for something to cut the seatbelt.
She looked at me as if she didn’t understand me. “Your name, I never asked you your name, what is your name?”
“Tiffany,” she said as we looked into each other’s eyes. “My name is Tiffany.”
“My name is Duane. It’s nice to meet you, Tiffany.” We both struggled to smile.
I opened the glove box on the dash to see if I could find anything sharp. “So, Tiffany, what are your children’s names?” I glanced at her for a second as I jammed a hairpin into the buckle, but it just broke in half.
“What?” she said confused.
“Your children, what are their names?” I dug my hand in between the seat and the console.
“Oh, ah…” She looked into the back seat as if she expected to see them in their car seats. She shook her head trying to find her words. “Ah…Bethany and Jacob. Their names are Bethany and Jacob,” she said with almost a sigh of relief.
“Well, those are lovely names.”
“Please help me, Duane. I don’t want to die like this.”
“I’m not gonna let you die. I’m gonna get you outta here.” Without showing it, my hope was fading quickly, but I couldn’t let this young lady’s life end this way.
Just then, the sound of locked up tires skidding across asphalt quickly approached no more than twenty feet from us. A man jumped out of the truck and I watched as he contemplated coming closer. He yelled to us, but I could hardly hear what he said. Seconds later, the sound of sirens stopped blaring. I yanked as hard as I could on the seatbelt trying to free Tiffany.
She screamed in terror. “My legs…my legs are burning, my legs are burning. Oh, God, please help me.” She shrieked.
The carpeting on the floor had caught fire and it was increasing in size quickly. The inside of the car began to fill with thick white and black smoke. The sight of firefighters’ legs began to surround the car as they prepared to hose the car down with water.
“I need a knife,” I yelled at the top of my suffocating lungs. “I need a knife. I need a knife.” A coughing fit from the smoke hit me; my lungs gasped for clean air.
Tiffany began to choke on the thick smoke as well, but it was much too hard for her to gasp for clean air as she was hanging upside down.
The man in blue jeans and cowboy boots from the truck heard my cries. “Here ya go!” He yelled, and he reached to his waistband, flipped open a holster, and slid a knife across the ground toward the car. It hit with a loud tap and then spun in place a few times.
Tiffany screamed and choked on the thick smoke as she slapped at her pants trying to distinguish the flames crawling up her legs. After her despairing cries, the feeling was overwhelming and I felt as though I was failing her. I could see it in her face that she was losing consciousness, I reached for the knife, hit the small button on the side, and the blade shot out in an instant.
“This is gonna hurt like hell,” I yelled to her as if her pants being on fire wasn’t hell enough. I cut the seatbelt next to the buckle and she came crashing down to the roof; the hit knocked the wind out of her and she tried gasping for clean air as she grabbed at her throat.
I didn’t hesitate for a second. I grabbed her free arm and pulled with all my might as I backed my way out of the rear passenger door. Once her other arm was visible, I grabbed it as well and pulled, moved my elbows and knees, pulled, moved my elbows and knees, and pulled. A few seconds later, two people had grabbed ahold of my legs.
“Hold onto her!” one man yelled, and the next moment we were both being rapidly pulled away from the blazing inferno.
One firefighter threw a blanket over Tiffany’s legs to put out the fires as they continued to pull us to safety. As soon as we were cleared, the inside of the car erupted and two huge walls of flames shot out both sides of the vehicle.
The firefighters were closing in on the front of the car but it was too late, the flames had jumped the rear axle and hit the gas tank. The front of the car bounced into the air from the downward pressure on the rear of the car when the tank exploded. Everyone ducked for cover as shards of metal flew in every direction.
Tiffany and I, both lay on the ground covered with blankets as the paramedics attended to her burns and broken legs. My lungs feeling as if they were on fire was my only problem besides being worn-out; well, and a few deep cuts on areas of my body. One of the paramedics strapped an oxygen mask over my mouth and did the same for Tiffany.
The trucker rushed over and stood by my side. “Man, I’m sure glad you’re okay. You’re a hero, dude!” He smiled as we shook hands as if we were about to arm-wrestle.
I pulled the oxygen mask from my face. “I’m sorry about your knife.”
“Dude, don’t even sweat it.”
We smiled and I returned the mask to my face.
Later that night, I found out that Bethany and Jacob were doing just fine and Tiffany was gonna be okay, but she’ll require about four months or more of recovery. I ask one of the officers that were at the scene if he could tell me what she said happened that put her in such a bad situation, and he told me that all she could say was, that it was just one text message.
Author notes: This note may not apply to everyone; Don’t be so selfish, that you would risk the lives of others around you, your family members, or the people who have to try and save you just because of your own stupidity.
They were all great stories. really enjoyed them.
This guy is a good writer. I like every thing he has wrote so far.
You are too kind. 🙂