My Brush with Death

My friend asked me to recall in writing how I almost died. He particularly wanted to read about it because to hear me tell it is hilarious. I am a bit of a raconteur, if I may say so myself, and I don't mind looking silly or bad in the pursuit of a few laughs.

He asked me to write about an incident I had with our motorcycle. I needed to clarify which one because I've had several accidents and several near brushes. http://www.grmtech.com/blog/always-wear-helmets-while-riding-a-motorcycle/

Considering my harrowing experiences, you would think that I would swear not to get back on a motorcycle ever again, but if you think that, you don't know me at all. I'm the kind of person who likes to face her fears. That's not to say that when I'm a passenger in my brothers' bike that I get on it without any qualms. Quite often, his ears would be burning from my admonitions to not go too fast, remember that facebook photo of a brain splattered on the pavement, etc., etc.

Now, to get back to the story. I don't really drive motorbikes anymore, am usually just a passenger with my brother driving me to the bus stop. It was business as usual and I have forgone wearing a protective helmet as our destination was just over a kilometer away. My brother IS was driving me to the bus stop and we were speeding along as traffic was light that night. My brother knew that our brake was faulty but he took a chance with his speed. He's a gambler that way.

So here I was, enjoying the wind in my hair, savoring the freshness of the air and dreading my coming shift at the call center I was working at. I hated that we were transferred to chat support and I was having a difficult time adjusting to it. I was jolted from my musings by my brother's cursing. “Putanginaaa!!!,” he said. “Tanginaaa!!!,” I echoed, just as we crashed headlong into the tricycle trying to cross the highway. I always figured that I would confess and ask for God's forgiveness just before I died so that I would go straight to heaven. No purgatory for me, nuh-uh! As it happened, had I died that night, I would have gone straight to hell.

I found that most accounts of accidents are true, and that Hollywood's version of action happening in slow motion is correct as well. Those few seconds of before we crashed and our reations after can be recalled in minute detail, like it was stretched across time, with our reactions exaggerated and having a bigger significance beyond the moment. I remember right after hearing my brother's curse looking ahead and there was this tricycle, stopped in the middle of the lane, seeing us ahead, but still continuing forward. I could see the slight shift of my brothers' head as he contemplated between crashing into the back of a parked car, going around the left side and into incoming traffic, or squeezing between the tricycle and the parked car. He chose to go between but it was too late. He's already tried to brake full-stop, I immediately felt we slowed down, but not enough for us to avoid smooching the other driver. The back wheel of our bike left the road, with me on top of it. Thanks to my Famke Janssen thighs I managed to hold on. We tilted sideways, I looked to my right and saw the road and the edge of the pavement rushing in to bash my skull. I remember thinking, if my head bangs on that, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, Diyos ko po Rudy (Diyos ko po, Rudy or OMG Rudy being a phrase we like to say, taken from a radio commercial that I haven't even heard)!!! I unclenched my fingers from the death grip they had on my brothers' arms and braced myself for the impact. I still managed to kiss asphalt and tasted grit, uh, to think people spit on it. Then I looked at the tricycle driver and saw that he was still sitting pretty astride his bike and all this rage came bubbling up. “Tangina ka, muntik na kaming mamataaayy!!!,” said my inner Bella Flores. Education and poise be damned, we almost died. I tore strips from off of the other drivers' hide, all the while knowing that whoever gets the upper hand first will not get the blame for it. Underneath all the anger was my brain calculating how we could pin the blame on the other driver. Of course, since my brain was still functioning, I noted that it was already 8:30 P.M. And I'm supposed to be at my desk before 9. I'm partly gleeful as I get to play hooky and in this frame of mind my first call after the accident was to my boss (who incidentally looks like John Regala while planning to rape a beautiful gel).

“Hi Boss Jim!,” I said cheerfully when he picked up the phone. “I won't be able to go to work today,” I said while thinking yey! This would be at least two days and I have an excuse. “Huh, why?,” he asked. All of a sudden, it hit me that I could have died, as in Killed Dead, as Baygon ads go (I don't know if it's possible to kill alive, or kill partly). I tried to speak normally, but my voice went from being husky-sexy, then ear-splittingly awful, as I went from normal to having my voice break on a sob, then plainly wailing out that we almost got killed. Thankfully, I walked a little bit away from the scene of the accident so nobody witnessed me doing an impersonation of a wailing banshee. My normally blustery boss was flustered trying to handle a crying employee. The conversation ended with him asking if I will be coming in later and me saying I don't think so as we will still be going to the hospital and then on to the police station to file a complaint. I think I hid my satisfaction at this behind my hiccups.

I composed myself before going back into the fray and noted that the broken metal thingies that were lying on the road have now disappeared. Huh. Metal railings affixed on bridges disappear overnight. These things were no longer attached to our bike and they disappeared during the course of a phone call. I must learn how to do that.

Well, the rest is history, we were relatively unscathed although it took a week before I could fully type without any pain. I had my brother undergo an x-ray and get antitetanus shots since he had wounds from his contact with the filthy tricycle. The other driver was okay and I filed a police blotter more to excuse my absence than to prosecute him.

What's hard is that my boss never fails to remind me of how I cried when I called him, then laugh maniacally while gleefully recalling it to whoever would care to listen. Hmp. Bully. Che!