The Seconds of Death

It was a Saturday. Finally, the college was over for the day. As on all Saturdays, the college got over early, by afternoon.

Vibha and her friend were walking back home from college. It was a twenty minutes walk. The two friends were talking about their day at college, cracking jokes and laughing.

There were times when they would do that while crossing the road also, both of them were absent-minded. But they soon realized that they needed to be more careful while crossing the road. Then onward, they would make it a point to stop talking and laughing when they came to the crossing.

That day too, when they reached the crossing, they stopped talking, to cross the road carefully. There was a broad divider running through the middle of the road.

It had just stopped raining. The roads were still wet and the umbrellas still open. They crossed half the road, and waited on the divider for the cars to pass by. Then they got down from the divider and walked half the distance to the opposite footpath. They looked casually in the direction from which vehicles were coming, and expected the road to be empty. But lo and behold! They saw a car zipping towards them at full speed.

Time stopped.

Their hearts stopped beating.

The car moved to the right lane, then quickly to the left lane, like a drunkard. Vibha and her friend did not know where to move – to go back to the divider or forward to the opposite footpath.

They decided not to move.

They held hands out of fright, closed their eyes and surrendered to God; and waited for death.

Some moments passed by, and nothing happened. They slowly opened their eyes. They were still in the middle of the road. The car had gone past them, and they could see it speed away on the other side.

The driver whose car had skid on the wet road, who had lost control of the steering wheel, must have regained control before hitting them, they thought. They thanked their stars that they were still alive.

All this happened within a matter of seconds. But they would never forget those few seconds – the seconds of death.