El artificio de la escritura / The artifice of writing


viernes, 18 de octubre de 2024

Safety



Although she had won the case and the law had cleared her of all responsibilities, she knew very well that she had been at fault, that she had caused the poor fellow to spend several months in the hospital, and to be condemned for life to an uncomfortable and painful disability. 

She remembered very well the horrible sound his car had made when she hit it with her oversized vehicle, that huge suv of hers her husband had insisted on buying for reasons of safety. 

“It is too big for me,” she had pointed weakly when they went to buy it. “I can barely see where I am going,” was her continuous complaint since the moment he got it for her. 

“Let the others worry about being seen or not. You just drive straight ahead and pay no attention to those puny pesty foreign excuses for a car always in the way. With your strong and safe big vehicle, a real car, you will always have the right of way. That's the idea.” 

He did not have to have said that with his mouth full, while chewing. As it was, his comments were gross enough. 

“The right of way” was a curious expression she had never understood properly until the day of the accident. She did not have the right to be in the way of the other. She had not been right when she rammed the poor man in his little, almost invisible cheap car that disintegrated around him in a heap of garbage.




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