To her horror, Auralia realized that from her vantage point, dangling in her car, she simply couldn’t see them below, where the family was fighting for survival.
She had been yards away as a family struggled to stay alive.
When her own car went over the edge, it hadn’t landed on a rock outcropping or a sand bar as she’d assumed. She must have landed on the Morrison’s vehicle.
Auralia’s body contracted as if she braced to take a blow. She stuck her head through the window and pushed her neck around until she could see the bridge the most clearly, making sure that another car wasn’t about to be jammed forward and come down on top of her head as she escaped her own predicament.
It seemed clear.
No bumpers were visible, at least. Also, no one came and leaned out to see what the screaming was all about.
Two cars over, and the injuries up top must be significant if there were no bystanders and no curiosity. After all, it wasn’t every day that two cars flew off a bridge.
The dad escaped.
There he stood on the bank with his hands on his knees, sucking in air to fill his lungs, coughing and hacking, and spitting out water.
When he stood, he looked up the hill, planning his route out of there.
He didn’t look up and around to see if any helpers could get involved in a rescue.
Most confusing to Auralia, he didn’t look back at the cars in the river. He didn’t see Auralia in the back seat of her own vehicle, with her leg dangling into the rushing waters.
That meant one of two things. Either Morrison’s family was dead and he knew it, or he left his family to die.
Auralia’s instinct was to go over the side and check for herself.
But some inner warning system reminded her that, as hard as it was, slow and steady was the way to win the race.
She needed to get to the shore. There, she could better assess and make decisions about a rescue effort.
Though time was precious, her mentor Remi’s voice was the little bird in her ear, “Thinkingsaves lives, especially yours. Take the time to evaluate and plan, then go.”
Auralia decided the fastest thing to do was to follow her original plan.
Auralia’s next task was to get herself into that cavity.
One of her roadblocks would be that there was no room to step into the trunk cavity. In there, she kept two bins. One barely had anything in it; it was simply her day-hike pack with “Survival Ten” items that she’d never go into nature without. She’d heard a hundred tales of search and rescue missions that would have been successful had they just gone out prepared. And if only to save herself from becoming an ancestral cautionary tale whispered around the bonfire back home with the tree frogs singing their lament.
Once she reached shore, that pack might be extremely helpful. That, and the bin it was packed in was watertight. Bonus.
The other bin taking up space back there was from a recent camping trip with a bunch of friends. She hadn’t yet had time to take the things out and clean them up to repack; the items would be grungy, for sure, but they were usable. She just didn’t remember if this was the box with the pop-up tent and sleeping bag, which would be helpful, or if this was the clutter box.
Auralia wanted to use both boxes as floatation devices. She was fairly positive the lighter one should float. She’d have to test out the camping box and see if it was friend or foe.
Edging farther out of the window, that one foot still in the water, both hopeful and horrified that someone would grasp her leg again as a lifeline, Auralia’s next battle was to get the air-filled plastic bag, which would serve as her flotation device, out the window. She had done an okay job of guessing how much inflation would work. But still, it was too much when she was taking up space in the opening as well.
Not wanting to take the time to unknot and start again, Auralia pressed the air to one side of the bag and held it there with a tight fist. After feeding the limp side of the bag through the window until it reached the bulge, she then reversed the effort, pushing the air to the side of the bag outside the window.
It worked like a charm.
Now, Auralia realized that as she was presently configured, there was no room for her to wiggle and bend and snake herself out of the window.
Yoga was helpful because it kept her flexible, but Auralia was reminiscing about her youth when she would climb along the bald cypress knees and swing upside down amidst the Spanish moss.
She got her torso out the window and shoved her air bag under one armpit, then the other. It was stupidly cumbersome. Still, if she slipped into the water, it could be lifesaving. “Please, be lifesaving.”
She flipped over onto her butt. The few inches of window that never receded, and Auralia had to assume as some safety feature, stabbed her in the ass as she reached up over the hood, splaying her fingers wide, trying to get a grip—in every sense of the word.
