“Australia! ” she said decisively (so sure of her self) .
“Hey...it’s ok! ” the stranger bending over her
told her.
She believed in the voice
in what the voice told her.
It was warm and husky ‘round the edges
like her Daddy when she was little.
Her knee pained her.
“God...” how it pained her.
“What’s your name...love? ” the voice cajoled her.
She had to re-focus to make the voice visible..
...lights...coloured... ...flashing lights...
dancing like a chat up
in a disco under a glittering ball.
“Oh you are handsome! ” she told him.
“I am indeed! ” the ambulance man agreed.
“Alan Handsome...how did you guess? ”
She felt herself blush to her roots.
She turned her head looking at her husband’s head
the stain that was Australia
had imperceptibly become South America
then a badly blurred early map of the world.
Then she closed her eyes and the world went away.
*
Both my friends survived this you will be pleased to know. This was related to me over tea and biscuits when she was dandling her new baby on her knee on a particularly sunny morning that was all innocence and sunshine. I didn't write at the time but the story sunk inside me and fought its way out into this telling after tunnelling through the years and years to reach the proper brain cell that would put it into words...and a synapse later that horrible night found itself trapped in my words.
The title comes from Hank Cochran's MAKE THE WORLD GO AWAY...she used always sing her own words to it and this is what was going 'round and 'round in her mind as they were having a row before the crash. It was the Jim Reeves version she liked best.