First Chapter LifeLife: Street Light
How I love sunsets! Every evening, my eyes open to witness the most beautiful scenery in the world - the sun setting in the distant horizon. The colors are all perfect at that moment. But that moment does not last long, it turns dark quickly and I have to focus my attention on the road.
I cannot see during the day so I may not know that much about life. I lead a relatively uninteresting life. Relative to a human, that is. I stand in the same spot beside the road all alone. My two other street light friends are half a mile away from each side of me and we can only hear each other if we shout.
Sometimes when I am very bored and sleepy, I play a game by myself to keep my eyes open. The game is to try and guess the make of an approaching car. This is a very challenging game because it is very dark at night. The highest score I ever got was 2 out of 9 cars in one single night. Mercedes headlights are easy to identify and 2 of those cars passed me that night.
Oh yes, not many cars pass by me because I am stationed at a very isolated place. I never complain because I know I have an important job at hand. I always tell my friends, “We are the Sun’s substitutes for at least 10 hours. That is quite important, isn’t it?” But they never listen and go on shouting for hours about how boring their life is. I wonder why they are my friends - probably because they look like me. We tend to find friends who resemble us in one way or another, I guess.
Anyway, one night I was playing that same game and I shouted with glee when I looked at an approaching car. Mercedes headlights!! All of a sudden, one car became two. Both cars were travelling at breakneck speed. It took me a moment to realise that it was another car trying to overtake the Merz from the right. That car had green neon lighting coming from underneath. Honda? Mitsubishi?
I was still trying to choose when I heard a deafening honking sound coming from something that passed me. It was a huge semi-truck, its driver blasting his horn repeatedly like nobody’s business. Wow! 3 vehicles in the space of one minute, what are the odds of that?
Then, reality hit me. I had heard of horror stories from word of street lights where speeding cars hit each other. Humans died. My thin metal body shivered as I thought of all the terrible things that I was going to witness. I wanted to cover my eyes, but I couldn’t. I could only wait for what was about to happen.
The Mitsubishi (I guessed Honda. *sulks*) was still in the lane of the oncoming semi. The Merz didn’t slow down to allow it to move into his lane. Humans really are stupid even though they have that brain thingy. It was too late. The semi was already right in front of the Mitsubishi. The human inside is going to die for sure, I thought.
In a moment of desperation, the driver of the Mitsubishi swerved to the right and went off the road. The semi still hit the car, but only the back of it. The car went off-course a little but regained its stability again. I had a quick glimpse of the Merz zooming off in the distance before I heard a loud crash followed by a sharp pain on my body.
Oh God!! Suddenly, I couldn’t see anything and the pain was terrible. I had never had pain before in my life. It hurt so badly that I cried. Tears of glass fell from my eyes and I started to lose consciousness. The last thing I remembered was hearing shouts from my friends, “Hang in there, mate!! The ambulance is on its way!!” Wow.. an ambulance? On its way.. for me?.. I wonder.. I wonder what make the ambulance is…
When I woke up, it must have been daytime because I couldn’t see again. The pain had subsided greatly.
“Where am I? Am I at a.. hospital?” I nervously asked.
There was silence at first, and then a familiar shout, “No, mate. You’re still standing at the same place. I don’t really know how to tell you this, but you know those ambulances? They only repair humans. They don’t repair street lights like us.”
Selfish humans, I thought. “Oh, that’s okay. I’m feeling much better now anyway, except for a little stinging pain in my back. Oh by the way, what time is it?”
The reply was, “Emm.. it’s midnight. You’ve been unconscious for almost 24 hours.”
Midnight?? “But, I can’t..”
“..see. I know. You’re blind, mate. When that Mitsubishi hit you, you lost your eyesight. Also, that back pain you’re talking about, that’s because you’re now bent at an angle towards the front and there is a deep cut in your back. I’m sorry. I really am. I know it’s hard to take it all in at once, but if you ever need us, we’ll always be at your sides. Literally. Take care of yourself, mate.”
And that’s how I ended up being blind and having a rather bad standing posture. Life goes on. I don’t know what happened to the Mitsubishi driver but I have never blamed humans for my fate. After all, I’m still a street light. I just don’t have the light.
May God be with you, for I cannot light your path any longer.
Written by Adrien