The all too dangerous combination of purple jade and yellow light

Her light had been yellow for a bit. I pulled from the driveway and across the non existent eastbound traffic to get into the empty westbound lane. I'm barely moving, there's a car that must turn south before I can cross into the westbound lane. She was heading eastbound, on her cell phone, right through that yellow light, shining briefly on the top of her speeding gigantic Ford Excursion.

When you're stuck, time slows and you leave yourself to watch safely from a distance. I saw her but there was nowhere to go. The car before me was making its left turn and I was moving but so was she. I turned to see the white barge coming for me, I saw her cell phone to her ear and I saw her face. I don't know where she came from but her journey came to an abrupt and screeching halt when she smashed into me. The sound of our cars introducing themselves to one another shattered my distance and pushed me hard along the street.

Fact: A Honda CRV is no match for a Ford Excursion.

I stay in my car and look through my driver's window at her. She's so close that what I notice is her earrings. I motion to drive to the parking lot beside the very one I just left.

Parked, she gets out of the car and smiles at me, says, I haven't been in a wreck since highschool.

Large purple jade drops on gold wires swing back and forth from her earlobes as she flips her hair. The small silver hoops on my own ears don't move at all as I contemplate what the hell she means by that, by what she said.

I ask her if she is okay. She does not answer, nor does she return the question.

She says, I didn't see you at first.

At first?

I'm not angry, I'm not anything but shaking. The accident has stripped my nerves and I can't think of anything nice to say in response so I say nothing at all.

We exchange insurance and phone numbers, say goodbye and get into our damaged cars. I sit in mine for 20 minutes before the shaking subsides. The vision of her SUV coming towards my window loops over and over again in my mind. It is something I've always feared and imagined, and in an instant can now fear and recall.

It's funny where your mind goes, what it keeps and what it discards. Right now, even though it was only this morning, I couldn't tell you what she was wearing, couldn't tell you the colors or if she were in a skirt or pants, long sleeve top or short. But those earrings, swaying carefree on her lobes in grace and defiance of the horrific sound that metal crashing into metal makes, those earrings I can tell you about.