"Oh my God, are we going to hit them?!"
In the split second my eyes
snapped forward and saw the white car rushing up to meet us, the piercing squeal
of skidding tires filled me with instantaneous panic. A moment later, I heard shattering glass and
my head slammed into the seat in front of me.
Then, silence.
Less than an hour earlier, sitting
in a lounge chair with my toes curling in the sand, I had been thinking about
how grateful I was for this day at the beach, surrounded by my friends. As I listened to the waves crashing on the
shore and watched the sun slowly sinking in the sky, it occurred to me that it
had been hours since I had thought about work, or our safety, or death, or any
of the other things that I worry about here.
We had swam, and joked, and jumped on the floating trampoline, and shoved
each other into the water, and I had laughed harder than I had laughed for
longer than I could remember. I felt
like a kid. I knew we had to go back to
work tomorrow, but I was happy to have a day out of Tabarre, away from the dust
and the walls and the chaos and the sadness.
I was happy just to be here, with people that I had grown to love in the
past few months.
