Karl lost his central and lateral incisors to a night of riotous inebriation. Witnesses, friends of his, remember the tractor coming at them, all bound together- caddy cornered in the bar. The adrenaline in their blood rose beyond any childhood mistakes. Karl’s escape was Sally’s and it was Lila’s. He’d have to leap over their backs to clear the impending collision with the dirt charred Caterpillar machinery. Outside of his physical body, Karl was already across the street lighting up a cigarette, hunched over the fallen telephone pole, puking his guts out, but his thoughts were too light to carry him out of harms way, so there he stood- face to face with the metallic claw that swung down just below his nose.
The clunk to his upper jaw started to skip like his father’s car CD player. His shut eyelids twitched as he tried to scream but realized he felt no actual pain. His body was in complete darkness, a wind tunnel that sent him soaring through oblivion. The feeling of freefalling overtook his nerves.
The first thing he saw was the fifty five hundred feet of rock cliffs. He couldnt move his arms or legs. In the entirety of an instant he looked around collecting his memory. His spaceship. His crew. A lousy breakfast. The eject button. He moved his fingers.
His eyes shut tightly and Karl clenched his teeth as the pain in his back soared beyond comprehension. Rolling to his side, off a particularly sharp stone he found relief. He was ok, he thought as he licked all his remaining teeth, an old habit since the actual tractor accident 17 yrs ago.
