Stories by Andrew Jacono

The first thing you notice in a car crash is the sound.

The shriek of metal grinding against a bulletproof blackboard as tall as a skyscraper. The ricocheting gunshot of the airbag and the swelling static, a din similar to a particularly overzealous fire alarm. The inundating whoosh that sweeps you away before you know what you hit, like being submerged in the Pacific without a raft.

You can’t swim to the water’s surface and breathe the briny ocean air until the tires stop squealing and the engine stops bumbling.

You find yourself enduring something akin to a cluster headache, crunching on glass crackers bitter from the regurgitated coffee you drank at lunch. For a moment, you aren’t sure how those little shards ended up in the cavity where you stick your food, until you glance at the sheer-white windshield, the ripples of glass spreading like the tendrils of a spider web.

Off to the side, you see something move. Twitch, more likely. You turn your head.