a wall of thick gray. I felt the impact when the car’s wheels left the smooth tarmac and bumped over the grass, though. And I felt the change when the car began to slide backward as if the wheels were greased.
Wet grass. Downhill. No traction.
My foot was still on the brake. Over the speakers, the song had reached a climax, and the singer was belting it out, the noise filling my head. And I was sliding. Sliding. Leveling out, and … bouncing. Against something that gave under me.
It was water.
I was in the river.
The headlights cut out, and then the radio did. Silence, but not, because I could hear the water around me. Not like rain. Nothing like rain. The darkness surrounded me, and my feet were so cold.
They were cold because they were wet, and then my ankles were.
I was trapped in my car with the doors locked, and I was sinking.
Gray
I drove through the fog and thought about nothing but the road ahead. I didn’t need to think about the meeting. I already knew what I would say to the former teammates who were now my chief investors. I already knew how I’d be, too. Direct. Open. Clear-eyed.
Being a builder isn’t much like rugby, you could think, except that it’s exactly like rugby. You make a plan, and then you go out there, keep your head, and play what’s in front of you, because rugby games, like life, never go according to plan.
Playing rugby and winning at rugby aren’t the same thing. The difference lies in how well you adapt. When life curves, you swerve. When the tackler comes at you, you sidestep, keep your legs moving, and find a new route. Well, if you’re a midfielder, you do. If you’re a forward, you do your best to run the other fella over instead. That way doesn’t work as well in business. That was why the boys with the low numbers on their jerseys were the silent partners in the background, and I was the nimble midfielder making it happen.
I knew how to do this. I’d been as good at that deceptively quick, silky sidestep as anybody in the game, and better than most, and I was still good at it. I also knew this road like the back of my hand, fog or no fog, because I was an Otago boy born and bred. I still wasn’t taking anything for granted. I was paying attention, because this visibility was no joke.
The only problem was the headache.
It started the way it usually did, with shimmering bands of light at the edge of my vision, and a blind spot like a starburst in my left eye. I had some tablets in the glove box, though, and as soon as I got through the worst of this fog, I’d pull off the road and take one. The pain hadn’t come yet, but it was there, lurking just beyond the black curtain, and so was the vertigo.
From working too many hours today, that was, even though I knew better. When you’ve had as many concussions as I have, you do tend to know better. Also from too much screen time and not enough to eat. All of that was fixable, though. I’d take a tablet, drive another hour, and go to bed. The meeting wasn’t until ten. I was used to pain, and I had time to get over this. Just another sidestep. Just another swerve.
That was why, though, when the red brake lights came on in the gloom, I wasn’t as fast as usual. It was the lights that weren’t actually there, the ones shimmering around the edges, that distracted me into not recognizing what I was seeing.
I did react, though. I was jerking the wheel hard to the right, preparing to swing around the other car, because my brain had already calculated that I couldn’t stop in time.
The problem was, the other car went the same way. The heavy ute caught it solidly on the right rear bumper even as my foot tried to press the brake pedal straight through the floor, and the car started to spin. I was moving to the verge at the sight, getting out of the way. Punching the button for my flashers, getting ready to help as soon as the other car stopped.
It didn’t stop, though. It turned a complete circle, turned some more, and slid backward straight off the road, the lights flashing from white to red to bright white again as