You think it would never happen to you, but it very often does. It did in my case last week, as I drove back home from my newsagent. I purposely chose Rene’ because his shop is approximately half-an-hour’s walk away, thus ensuring my daily exercise, but it was raining heavily that Monday morning so I drove there, a decision I was to regret only a few minutes later.
I don’t actually remember accidentally driving my wife’s small car into the back of a two-storey-high lorry in front as we waited for the lights to change. All I know is I was suddenly surrounded by people talking urgently to me from both sides of the car, the rain coming down in buckets into the car from where the windscreen once was, and a certain tickling sensation down my face. No pain, no clear awareness of what had really happened, just an instant reaction whispered to myself: “Shucks, and this has to happen exactly the very morning after we’d decided to book where and when to go on holiday.”
The rest is like a film that you’ve seen somewhere but can’t recall. As I came out of the car, someone gave me a fistful of tissues to hold to my forehead. Then someone else helped me across the street, took me to a small toilet inside a nearby shop and made sure I dabbed my forehead with fresh, cold water. The white basin swiftly turned red, but I was still thinking of the car and the holiday to let it bother me.
As fellow drivers, the Maltese may not exactly be the best people with whom to share the road, but off it they have hearts of gold. They had earlier alerted the lorry driver, as it was obvious he had not even felt the impact made by my car, and he was among those trying to attract my attention immediately after I came to, which was probably a question of a few seconds.
People stopped their cars and came out to see if they could be of any help. I am not exactly the world’s greatest conversationalist even in the most normal of circumstances, let alone when caught, as I was, between the ouch and the out. They asked me questions, which I am sure, remained unanswered, but I remember insisting with a well-meaning gentleman that I did not need the ambulance he was asking some onlookers to call.
It is very probable that the blood flowing down my face gave people the impression I was hurt a lot more than I actually was. With hindsight, it is funny what you see and remember during such murky moments, while you tend to forget other, possibly more important things. A woman who drove past had a quick look at me and seemingly almost fainted, regained control and drove on. I must have been a pretty awful sight.
Then, out of nowhere, the attendant of the petrol station near which everything occurred, came with a glass of thick, black coffee for me. Drink it; drink it, several voices told me. I hesitated, but everyone kept insisting I drank it. I just took a quick sip and absurdly kept on thinking of that holiday we had just booked, but it seems to have worked immediately as I went back to the car before anyone could put another word in, pulled it single-handedly out from under the lorry and got back in behind the steering wheel.
I tried to say thank you to all those around me, but they seemed genuinely concerned I had decided to drive again. I had the presence of mind to know I was only round the corner from my home garage and I was also highly aware too that a great deal of rainwater was pouring into the vehicle. More anxious faces looked from the sides. Would it re-start, after all? It did. It must have been an incredible sight for many, though, as I drove the car still covered by broken glass, no windscreen and with a strangely knotted front.
Back home alone, I refused to look at myself in the mirror. Tissues kept turning a paler shade of red until it became pink and pinker still, while I made the necessary phone calls to family. My son-in-law was the first to come over. He wanted us to go to hospital, a proposition I flatly refused. Having taken a look at the wound, he then suggested we went to the regional polyclinic, to which I grudgingly agreed. You see, he’s Italian and they do tend to dramatise things a little bit.
At the Gzira polyclinic, I had to run the gauntlet of people ogling me in a way that finally made me take it more seriously. “Oh, not another one, this rainy morning,” I heard a passing medical worker whisper to another. Believe me, it is no consolation to know you are not the only victim of a traffic accident on a given day.
In the end I came out wearing a sort of headband, Red Indian style, with the duty doctor insisting I returned two days later for another check-up. He had earlier accepted, but not understood, my refusal to have the tetanus jab as a precaution. When he and my son-in-law exchanged inaudible words in Italian I knew they were not saying pleasant things about me, but I let it be. I had things to write that day too and I was getting anxious about some of the deadlines.
What was the fuss all about? The wound was a mere half-inch slit on the forehead, with which I probably hit and broke the windscreen on impact. Over the years I have had similar scars, like lunar craters stamped all over my head, mostly from cowboy-vs-Indian childhood bouts to, later in life, some unwarranted aerial football collisions.
The moral of the story: other than bearing unexpected witness to a display of innate Maltese kindness, I was not wearing the safety-belt; at least I don’t think so, lest a warden happens to be reading this piece this morning. Or was I?