From White to Black

Flash Fiction Writing Prompt. 1 Hour White to Black Tell a Story Through Dialogue 700-900 Words

I love Casey, but I don’t know how she’s able to be so perky this early in the morning. “It’s Prince,” she says on a laugh. “It’s mandatory that you sing along to any Prince song when it comes on the radio.”

I’d like to pretend I don’t know the words, but it’s Little Red Corvette, and those are basically the only words in the song. “I need to concentrate on the road.”

“It’s so foggy. You’re going like twenty miles an hour. I think you can sing. Come on. It will be my early babymoon present.”

I smile at her. I never knew being married could be this…great. She beams back at me and does the pouty face that makes me do whatever she wants. “Little,” I sing, as her head whips forward. A loud thud followed by her scream makes me jerk my eyes back to the road just in time to see something slide up the windshield and over the car.

“You hit that guy!” she yells.

I instinctively turn around to see what’s lying on the road. “It had to be a deer or a dog. I can’t see anything but white fog.” I also don’t see the SUV when we slam full force into the side of it. It’s a jolt to my body, but all I can think about is my wife and unborn daughter in the seat next to me.

“Oh my God, Keith. Are you okay?” she asks.

“Yeah, yeah, fine. You? The baby?”

Her head shakes vigorously. The brown curls flop widely. My head slams into the windshield. Blinding pain runs up my leg. “I broke my leg,” I groan, wanting her to say I’m crazy.

No response. 

“What just rear-ended us?” I ask.

“That pickup,” she says, pointing to the red paint pressed against her cracked window.

“We have to get out of here!” I’m trying to hide my panic, but I’m failing. Hitting the SUV crumpled the hood, but it was still running. The pickup crushed us. We’re not going anywhere.

“I think we should stay in the car.” How can she be so relaxed? Blood is running over her hand and down her face. I instinctively look at her belly—her crotch. No blood. Good?

A loud crash just outside her window shakes our car and moves the pickup. It disappears into the white fog.

“We can’t stay here.” I pull the door handle, but the door doesn’t move. I frantically try a few more times while pressing my shoulder against it. Nothing.

“You hit a man who got out of his car!” She’s no longer calm. We look hopelessly at each other then out into the white, trying to identify any help in the fog. “Fire.”

“Where?” I ask, but she’s already pointing. “Those are pretty big flames. Car, probably. I think it’s far enough away.”

Another loud crash somewhere behind us takes me back to my childhood. The neighborhood boys used to have trash-can fights. My brother and I had the advantage because our trash cans were metal. I never knew that a car crash sounded the same: clanging metal, plastic cracking, glass shattering…screaming.

“Should we help?” she asks. “I can hear people calling. We should do something.”

“We need to stay put. There’s nothing we can do.”

She pulls a wad of napkins out of the glove compartment and presses them to her head. I’m horrified I haven’t helped. I reach for the napkins, but she snaps her head back. “No, I got it. It hurts. How bad is it?”

“Not bad,” I lie. I have no idea. I only saw the blood, not the wound. “Nothing bleeds like a cut on your head.” Hopefully, that sounded reassuring.

“You guys okay in there?” a male voice says. We both anxiously look around.

“He’s not talking to us,” Casey says, as we both try to pinpoint where the man could be in the sea of white. “Maybe we should get out now.”

I try to lift my leg, and my ankle sends waves of pain up my body. “My leg is messed up. I’m stuck here until help arrives. I think we should stay in the car. We don’t know how big this pile-up is.”

She nods. I look into her eyes as the car erupts in sound. The horn of a semi. Grinding metal. The steering wheel pressed against my chest. The air involuntarily forced from my lungs.

The horn won’t stop. I can’t breathe. I hurt everywhere. I peed my pants? No, blood.

I can’t move away from the steering wheel. I open the only eye that’s cooperating. My chin is over the wheel, and my forehead is resting on the mangled dashboard. Blood has soaked through my khakis. This is bad. I turn my head to check on Casey.

White fog surrounds us. Against my body’s judgment, I reach out to touch her belly. “We’re going to be okay,” I whisper into the fog as my hand touches the mutilated metal of the semi.

“Casey?” I croak as the white turns to blac