Fatality

Three hours before dawn

on Interstate Seventy-Five,

a nineteen-vehicle pileup

killed ten people, and

sent eighteen to the hospital.

Twelve passenger vehicles and

seven semi-trailer rigs collided.

It looked like the end of the world.

Wreckage, burned and twisted,

stretched for a mile along

the high-traffic transit route

down the middle of the state.

Smoke, fog, and darkness.

People were crying.

People were screaming.

It was a tragedy.

  

These multi-car pileups often happen in the pre-dawn hours, when fog has rolled in reducing visibility. These stories are always hard to read. So many people, many of them on their way to work, lose their lives .

I hope for a happier story tomorrow.

© 2012 Catherine Giordano

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Life Can Change in an Instant

Both had the day off;
they came up with a plan.
Lunch at the White Wolf Café;
a walk around Lake Eola.

At the intersection

of Orange and Colonial,
two suspects fleeing a robbery
blaze through the light.

Chaos.

Covered in blood.
Unable to move.
“It was so fast.”

Two people

in the exact wrong place
at the exact wrong time.
One moment can change a life.

Our lives, at the mercy

of randomness.
Luck is unpredictable.
It is hard to make sense of it.

© 2012 Catherine Giordano

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