The Sunroof

Author: Davis Hicks

Kid crashed his car into the River at 2:03.

It was just as the sun came into his eyes and flared that he’d swerved. Or didn’t realize he’d

swerved.

Not that it mattered.

He was more focused on the airbag, the snap at his neck, the punch of it.

Not deciding if he was grateful he didn’t wear a seatbelt or not.

The thunder-thump of hitting the water.

He was thinking of it feeling like he was in an elevator, express straight to Hell or riverbed or

both.

How his glasses were long gone, his eyes blurry the way he imagined they’d become soon.

He tried the door at 2:04.

He couldn’t hear what he thought he’d hear. No draining, no dripping.

Just the wheezing of the airbag as he shoved at it, doing a pushup away from his chest.

He thought about the window thirty seconds later, after his door failed him.

He wished he’d pocketed the knife with the glass-breaker at 2:05.

By then the windshield was covered.

He remembered, only as he felt the water on his knees, the sunroof.

That glorious expensive escape hatch he’d only used to hide the smoke scent and look at stars.

The sunroof’s surface seemed similar, barely coated like a pan being washed.

Kid’s view was fractals, the water full of surface light.

It was growing darker.

At 2:06, after fiddling on the edges like so many searching fingers on aquarium glass, he’d pry it free, just before top weight would make that impossible.

He did surface.

He took the greatest breath he’s had in all his 17 years, even deeper and more pure than the

very first.

It’s only at 2:07, after paddling to the pillar that held the bridge that could not hold him, that he will study. Will study the sound of his own ragged breath. Will study the deceptively smooth surface of the rippling water. There he will remember, only as he trembles, the car seat.

Davis Hicks lives in Apex, North Carolina. A fan of the outdoors, his dog, and not taking himself too seriously, Davis got his BA in English at Samford University before moving to pursue his masters, writing all the while. His work has been published or is upcoming in Wide Angle Literary Journal, Prosetrics Literary Magazine, and Trident Poetry Collective, among others. He can be found  @davis.drafts on Instagram.