October 4, 2020.

You're holding a stranger's hand. She hangs upside down in the wreckage of her car, and you're pretty sure her spine is broken. She can't feel your hand no matter how hard you squeeze it. A young boy lies crumpled unnaturally in the back seat: he wasn't wearing his seatbelt. His face has a chunk of your car in it.

"I can't see," she informs you.

"I called 911. They're on their way. I'm sorry."

"Okay. Thank you."

You usually take a nap before these long drives, but you didn't today, and now look where it's got you.

For a while, she talks about her life, her family, her childhood, and you learn her favorite places to walk in her neighborhood and the cities she's traveled to. There's a maple tree she planted in her parents back yard when she was ten that barely went up to her dad's hips, and now it's the size of the house and spills buckets of red and orange leaves every fall.

She says she was afraid of being audited this year; she thought she did her taxes wrong. Her husband always used to do that sort of thing, but they divorced just around Christmas. She says she loves the smell of freshly tilled dirt. She asks you to call her parents and you promise. You never forget their phone number for the rest of your life.

She keeps talking for a while, even after she stops being able to hear your responses or reassurances or apologies. You stay there until the police and ambulance arrive, but by then she's already dead.