Of Losing Control and Being Met There
1 She left the city believing the road would behave as it always had.
2 Ice answered otherwise, invisible and exacting, and the car spoke faster than thought.
3 Fear taught her hands the wrong lesson, and momentum finished the sentence.
4 When the motion stopped, her mind did not; it scattered, searching for what comes next.
5 She had never failed like this before, and the world felt suddenly much larger and less kind.
6 Before the shame could settle, a stranger stood where the leaving should have been.
7 He spoke in steps, not judgments, and time slowed enough to breathe inside.
8 Though help delayed and certainty wavered, she was not alone with the waiting.
9 Authority arrived eventually, but safety had already been established.
10 The damage would be measured later; first came the repair of steadiness.
11 She learned that mistakes need not be carried alone, nor fear endured in silence.
12 And so her first accident did not teach her terror, but this: the world may still send witnesses.