Epiphany (standard:drama, 1274 words)
Author: E J Reeve	Added: Feb 12 2003	Views/Reads: 3375/2123	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Beware of what you wish for...

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

Presentation is important, he recites daily, straightening his tie, and 
a smart suit equals a promotion, which means the opportunity onto the 
property ladder and then marriage and children, his goal. 

She tried to convince him she wanted bigger things, she had dreams to
realise, opportunities to be available for her, the freedom to live her 
life.  He stood there, his arms expansive, wrists upturned in the 
middle of their small shared flat. 

"What things Kate, what dreams do you have?" 

She couldn't answer, but squirmed into the threadbare beanbag.  'You
don't know what you want do you?  He was angry and felt cheated. 'What 
has this been all about?' 

Kate tried to explain she was scared of becoming used-up and bitter,
terrified of being trapped into a role and losing her identity.  She 
deserved more than that, more than vanishing underneath children and 
mortgage repayments, with nothing to look forward to but snatched 
frozen dinners in front of the TV, her body racked with exhaustion.  
Why was it so wrong to want more, a sense of achievement, of making her 
mark?  He just looked at her in disbelief, 

"That's what children are all about" 

"But there is so much out there Pete" 

Slipping into supplication already, she noted, the years of familiarity
and love dissipating rapidly in the realisation that they wanted 
different things, and then the ultimatum. 

"Kate" 

She jumps back to reality, to the raindrops bleeding down the windows
and the rhythm of the car. 

"Pass me my fags will you, I think they're in the glove compartment" 

He's fumbling around now as he drives, his breath coming in short
irritated spurts. 

Please God, She whispers in her head as she eases herself forward, the
motion of the car sweeping through her head as it drew nearer and 
nearer to her inevitable submission. Please God, change all this for 
me. 

The rich earthen smell of the outdoors floods into the car as her body
is thrown back, a screech of metal echoing through her senses. A solid 
leafy branch rams through the windscreen trailing damp foliage over the 
crumpled dashboard and her aching face.  Before Kate realises what has 
happened, the shock suffuses her body, dragging at her limbs and 
consciousness into a dark stiff place edged with rainwater. 

She lies there curled up around the broken dashboard, buried in the
gloss of the leaves, lacquering her face; her body numb from the 
unnatural silence emanating from behind the wheel.   She waits, surfing 
the borders of consciousness, an image of Pete with his arms outspread 
before her imprinted in her mind.  She waits, growing colder, for what 
seems like an eternity. 

They are talking to her softly, telling her what they are doing whilst
they cut her gently out of the wreckage, their calm tones washing over 
her as she lies numb and resolute. A tree in the road, the brakes 
failed, such a tragedy, the words drift around the borders of her mind 
as they prise her out.  She feels light-headed and unsteady as the cold 
dawn light breaks over her tense painful body. Despite the gentle 
sympathetic tones, the hands fluttering over her like falling leaves, 
Kate knows what has taken place behind her in the tangle of burnished 
metal and branches gleaming in the rising sunlight.  It's a miracle, 
she thinks, walking away from the crash site, ignoring the restraining 
arms of the paramedics. It's a miracle, the fresh air revitalising her 
cramped sore body.  She raises her weak blinking eyes to the sky, 
inhales the freshness of the earth and then she realises it has finally 
stopped raining. 


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