The rumbling vibrations scratch my legs as I sink into boredom in our Toyota Sienna. Outside, white flakes appear from the deep foggy gray and light up all the drivers’ hearts as they glide down. The air grasps for them, but the snowflakes fall out of reach. The flakes finally land on our windshield, one at a time. Each prints a beautiful copy of itself in water and enjoys the windshield’s company. The windshield wiper sweeps them off. SWOOSH. All that is left is a puddle of water, which is also swept away. All traces of snowflakes are gone.
Nonetheless, we scurry with other cars down an endless concrete path. I wince at the child in the car seat to my left, hitting me and shrieking about wanting more food, toys, and everything else. At the same time, my dimples deepen and my smile widens. His wispy sweep of golden blonde hair, complementing his calm sea-blue eyes, and that joyful giggle people can adore a mile away—all contrast with my dark brown curls, chaotic green-brown eyes, and silent wheeze of a laugh. I can’t see the blood relation between this six-year-old boy and me. Yet he is biologically my half-brother, and we share the same mother, who is now sitting in the passenger seat.
With fluffy multi-gray curls in a cropped haircut, she sits in the front watching the silent film of sparkling white flakes outside. Her mysterious pale green eyes pierce the windshield, her feet propped up as if the dashboard were her foot comforter. From asking a question again and again after I have answered it, and buying bags full of presents randomly, to lying on the couch when she has work to do, my mom is an enigma that I can’t and won’t solve. Her left wrinkled, veiny hand clutches the large, gloved hand of the driver. Thin, wispy gray hair decorates the top of my stepfather’s head. Thick spectacles help his eyes witness the windshield wipers wipe away the snow as his hands slowly shift the steering wheel back and forth to be “safe.” His large fishbowl of a stomach fills up the room between him and the steering wheel; his thick white socks and leather sandals caress his large feet. My head throbs in pain remembering when my stepfather packed the trunk. He created a force field of frustration, telling us in his low, gritty growl he needed to concentrate alone. I could see his mind then internally smile at last, while my frown pained my head. My seatbelt cringes remembering that he waited to hear the seat belt click in for each person before he started driving, his impatient eyes digging deep into my brain, his monotone voice grinding against my head and breaking the walls of my comfort zone. Oh, what a character.
I struggle to peel off my black coat as more and more snow greets the window, the car blasting heat. In the flurried distance, the deep green sign flashes “Welcome to New York.” Phewh, we’re almost there. My stepfather keeps driving, my mother keeps staring with her feet up, my little brother keeps banging into my arm and shrieking into my ears, so I decide to pick up a book, any book, to find my part in this dull play.
∗ ∗ ∗
The vibration is gone. Something is not quite right…I look up and freeze. The black concrete road is gone. Our car skids on sparkling white. The blur outside, the snow, trees and concrete paint a dizzy impressionistic whir. My body feels light, too light. Okay, focus. My eyes start moving again. I comprehend that the car is spinning at top speed. I latch onto the handle above the car door with both hands, so hard they turn red.
But the pain in my arm lifts, and my ears are relieved from the wails of my little brother. Right when our play’s tragedy comes, everyone freezes, unable to play their frantic parts. The calm sea of their eyes numb their skulls till they become statues, their breath the only sign of life. My little half-brother stops flailing, no sound is uttered from the passenger and driver seats. Then my stepfather takes my half-brother’s role, this time flailing his hands as he helplessly turns the steering wheel back and forth. I’m shocked. Why aren’t they moving? Where did their scripts go? Don’t they know we are going to crash? Isn’t this serious?
Nature’s hand shook our snow globe world, causing the car to spin frantically and the snow to peacefully fall.
Through the crystal clear window to my left, I look at the impressionistic blur. A white pine, its slender green pine needles sprouting from the top of its trunk, the intricate curves and indents on its warm brown bark making the tree complete. The next tree, a beautiful facsimile of the first. A completely new concrete path comes next, carrying the weight of millions of trekking cars, the drivers ignoring the small blue dot of our spinning car in the distance. The snow glitters and floats up in the air, how pristine and calm while we spin. How can that happen? Why am I so still? Where did the sound go? Another tree matches the first two, and then the next, the next…and then the concrete path we previously cruised on comes into focus…360 degrees, another full circle, another, another….
CABAAANNNG! That would have been a perfect sound for what happens to the rear windshield, producing a shower of glass on our trunk of suitcases. But all I hear is an ominous silence, full of unnerving doubt and a cool breeze, the rear windshield a pile of glass shards in the trunk. I see a tree standing still through the window, and the crazy impressionistic painting is gone. We have finally stopped! My stepfather calls AAA and we wait. My little half-brother is frozen in place. Mute but breathing. My mother is also mute, but the back of her seat hides her expressions. I imagine her still staring out the window, feet up on the dashboard. After years of silence, my stepfather clicks open the door and greets AAA with open arms. I hear his voice behind me talking to them. Ideas whiz through my head: what are we going to do? Is there any damage to the car? Why did this happen? I’m so wrapped up in my thoughts that the rest of the car, my mother, my half-brother, fade away until only my seat and seatbelt and handlebar are in view. I mean, I have been in a car crash before, but that was when I was a baby and sleeping, and the whole car rolled over, which was far more serious. So what would you call this one? My stepfather’s steps crunch through the snow to the driver’s seat, breaking the tension in the air. He slides in. He poisons the air with his frown, and a blanket of darkness envelopes us. The door thuds shut after him.
We roll back onto the highway and rest our car in the parking lot of the nearest motel. It is pitch black when my mouth relaxes with the taste of cheap diner food in dim light and we all unlock our own rooms with our dull key cards, and my body relaxes into a huge, stiff mattress.
The next morning the dark gray frown of the sky welcomes me. After a quick morsel of breakfast, the sun shines down on our small dark-green rental car, our Toyota Sienna’s opposite, while our own car is towed away for repairs.
My brother is his cheerful self again after eating chocolate chip pancakes, and he asks my mom to buy him toys in the store. She is also her cheerful self, her hair bobbing back and forth, her purse swinging from side to side, as if the crash never happened. My stepfather is now back to his usual self, his voice the volume of a foghorn and his mind focused on the logistical details of our broken car. I, on the other hand, am recovering from the shock of no damage happening to any of us.
We all swing the doors open and tiredly ease into the car, closing the doors behind us with a thud. The sun melts the crisp snow into slushy water, and Nature lets us pass as the snow globe disintegrates into an endless sea of trees and concrete.