It was Rasul and I who were decidedly out of control, more at this moment than we had been in the past couple of weeks when we made the mistake of allowing pipe dreams to become real. I know Rasul was screaming “Shit!” though I couldn’t hear it above my blood pumping hard and fast in my ears. He hit the brakes hard, and maybe they gave out or maybe they just gave up. We spun on a slick of ice that covered the road about ten feet ahead of the deer. I saw Rasul’s mouth moving but didn’t hear one word. I had stopped breathing so I couldn’t scream or cry. I didn’t even get a chance to steal a look at him before the chocolate Eldorado tipped over the flimsy guardrail only experienced drivers should have expected to protect them. As we tumbled down the rocky side of a jagged hill whose altitude I didn’t know, Rasul vomited against the dash and I pissed myself. I reached out ahead of me to hold on to something, but nothing was there but clear glass mired with dirt, twigs, water, snow, and brown leaves. Like cloth playthings I had watched through washer and dryer doors, we rolled from ceiling to floor and back to our seats.

But none of it hurt. Not one knock or hit made me cry out. I was only wishing I had told Rasul I loved him, and I imagined that’s what he was now saying to me though there was just too much commotion for us to say anything now. My world suddenly became a cube of gravity suspending. I didn’t wonder when the ride would end or where it was taking me. I was only wondering in those last few moments if this was how Ma felt when she was tumbling out of the Ferris wheel.