Melody (ampedto11) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2010-07-26 05:16:00 |
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Entry tags: | #flashback, #solo, melody |
Explosion of Sound
Who: Melody and various NPCs
When: March 1, 2005
Where: On the road
Melody never even knew where they were going.
Aside from class, she hadn’t had much of a social life lately. The long period between winter and spring breaks were getting to her. She hated every class, every teacher, every lecture. Not a single subject appealed to her. She never retained any information; she’d long since paid off eager and broke students to write her papers for her. When friends of her parents asked what she was studying – hell, what her major even was – Melody had to pause and think about it. Did it really matter anyway? Everyone knew she wouldn’t do anything with it.
She’d always struggled with depression, but it had been worse since starting college. Depression wasn’t the word for it anymore. She just didn’t care. Depression had finally faded into numbness, and she was okay with that. She popped pills to numb everything – a pill for every thought, every emotion – and went through the required motions. She went out with friends on the weekends – that was what one did, after all – and by the end of every night she was blackout drunk, waking up the next morning in the corner of someone’s living room not knowing what had happened.
And not caring.
The thought that the rest of her life would be spent like this – not caring – had never occurred to her. And had it, it wouldn’t have bothered her a bit. She was apathy incarnate. So when her standard group of friends showed up that Tuesday and said they were going out, Melody shrugged, and went out. Aubrey drove. That was how things went.
Melody, Aubrey, Giselle and Lisa had been a clique ever since grade school. As teenagers, they could have split off to different groups, but they didn’t. They were similar girls of similar breeding, and they went well together. As teenagers, Aubrey and Giselle proved to be prettiest girls in school, while Lisa and even Melody were decidedly plain, but this was forgiven. Lisa and Melody came from better families. Aubrey’s single mother had married into money, while Giselle’s parents were just fucking trainwrecks. Her mother was in and out of rehab, and her dad went through au pairs for their younger children faster than poor people went through canned spaghettios and lottery tickets. Lisa and Melody’s parents were upstanding citizens. True pillars of the community.
Whatever.
As with all outings, the seating was standard. Aubrey drove one of her step-father’s Escalade, with Giselle in the passenger seat giving directions (orders). Giselle was always in charge. The stunning brunette took charge of every situation, Aubrey ever at her side. Melody and Lisa sat behind them, along for the ride.
On the way out the door, Melody’s mother absent-mindedly asked where they were going (she didn’t pretend to show interest, it was simply the sort of thing one asked). Giselle answered, “Detroit.” And with a dazzling grin added, “She’ll be back late.” Later, when Melody was fading in and out of consciousness, she’d remember thinking ‘yeah, there’s a fucking understatement.’
The group chattered on as they drove, though Melody’s voice was heard infrequently. Giselle liked the radio too loud, and she and Aubrey would often sing along. Most of the music made Melody’s head hurt. ’Rich Girl’ by Gwen Stefani was playing, and Melody felt as if she was chewing on glass. She dug around in her purse for a pill bottle, and popped two of the first thing she found. Giselle saw in one of the mirrors and laughed. Lisa offered her a smile and a sip of her bottled tea.
There was a loud popping sound, and Aubrey gasped. Her entire body clenched, and Melody looked up just in time to see a truck coming her way.
It wasn’t like in the movies, with everything happened in slow motion. It all happened so fast that Melody never had time to take a breath. She never tensed up in anticipation of pain, never screamed. It happened so fast, and yet she retained every moment. The rest of her life she’d remember it all.
Melody was thrown sideways in her seat against the seatbelt, and the out of control truck pushed the Escalade into the railing of the overpass. It didn’t hold. There was never even a second of tension to indicate to Melody that it would, though Lisa and Aubrey were slammed by the contact. Giselle screamed. Melody looked to her side, to Lisa, and saw the rail give. They kept moving.
Again, falling wasn’t like in the movies. Melody felt neither heavy nor utterly weightless, and the fall didn’t seem to go on for forever. She never even blinked. Their vehicle continued to tilt, even in mid-air. Out Lisa’s window Melody could see the highway below coming, and then oncoming traffic when they were upside down. That was how they landed. It was impossible for the human eye to tell what happened first – the truck landing on top of them, or an oncoming car slamming into the driver’s side. In this instant, some distant part of Melody’s brain realized the entire world had been very silent since they’d been hit, but now it had exploded into sound. Breaking glass, squealing tires, the crunch and twisting of metal. Melody never felt what happened to her. The world exploded to sound, and then blackness.