A Few Abstractions

Fear: A Red SUV on 9th Street

The drive down 9th Street is a risky venture. It runs along the bottom of a hill and intersects multiple two-way stops. It is risky because cars tend to speed down these steep side roads and blaze right through the stop signs. Driving down 9th Street used to remind me of one of my favorite computer games called Frogger. This game involved me pounding furiously at the keyboard in order to help a bright green frog dodge the onslaught of speeding traffic. My palms would sweat and my shoulders tense. However, it was inevitable that my limited gaming skills would bring the tiny amphibian to a gory, pixelated doom.

For me, that is what driving used to be like. A game. But this past summer I was driving my nine-year-old brother, Henry, home from soccer practice in my dad's forest green Honda Civic. Looking back, it seems to me that before I even registered any sort of danger, my body reacted. Before I saw the red SUV barreling down the hill towards my brother and me, my palms became saturated with sweat and my shoulders braced for the impact. The sunlight crystallized the scene. The blue of the sky, the green of the grass, the white of the houses, and the red of the SUV were lit up, like the parts of a magnificent stained glass window. A fragile world about to shatter. It was too late for me to react, no time to lay on the horn or to slam on the brakes or jerk the wheel.

The SUV swerved, I gasped. There was a silent moment and then my brother laughed in relief. He hadn't seen what I had seen in that moment, in that moment, which for me was the moment of what could have been. Twisted green metal, broken glass reflecting the sky, spilled oil mixed with blood, and my life without him.

Love: The Smell of Chlorine

Sitting on this couch, we are so close, my sister, my cousins, and me. As we have done many times before, we are looking through old photo albums. My stomach aches from laughter, and my sister, Audrey, can't stop her hiccups. Emily and Allison have tears in their eyes, while Daniel continues to chuckle, at his own joke. The next photo is several years old and features all of us at the pool. Each of us is dressed in matching polka-dotted swimsuits, Christmas presents from Grandma. Everyone is sporting toothy grins. This alone is enough to get us started again.

Although times have changed, it used to be that over Christmas break we would travel to our grandparent's house in St. Louis. Almost everyday, we would swim for hours at the local indoor swimming pool. We were a family of otters, always wet and playful. Our second home was filled with laughter, laughter echoing off high walls, blue tile, and rippling water.

Nature: The Stillness of the Night

It is unnatural. The computer lab is a sterile prison lit by fluorescents. My fingers reach and bend across gray keys. Their jittery clicking urges me to type faster and faster. My gaze is locked on the sick glow of the screen. I push my mind to calculate faster and faster, so that I can be done with this ridiculous Computer Science lab assignment. I look at the problem from as many angles as I can think of, and as a last resort, I do multiple trial and error tests. The solution is so close I can smell it. I am the frantic rat in its maze, running in circles, going mad from the smell of the cheese. The TA comes up and tells me the lab is closing for the night. I pack up my things. Habit takes over, so that my mind can continue without interruption to scramble about in the maze.

As I step out into the night, I look up. The moon illuminates gauzy clouds with sliver frost. I feel the ground beneath my feet and the weight of my backpack on my shoulders. I feel the stiffness in my legs and the tension in my neck. The cold air has stilled my fevered mind, and the light of the moon has brought me back to who I am.