The Human Condition

comfort. At this stage of their pregnancies, Sonya thought, all of her friends were at home with their feet up, resting and getting ready for what was about to happen. And where was she? Going nowhere fast in the middle lane of one of the busiest motorways in the country during the peak of the morning rush hour. And where did she want to be? Just about anywhere else.

    Focus on tomorrow night, she told herself. Tomorrow night Chris would be coming home and they'd finally be able to spend some time together. It would probably be their last chance for a while. They'd planned to go out for a meal and to see a movie. The couple were well aware of the massive upheaval and change they were about to experience in their lives and they both fully realised the importance of making the most of the time they had left before the baby came. The last few weeks had been a struggle, but Sonya could see things getting easier for a time before the birth. A nice warm bath and an early night tonight, she thought, would be just what she needed to get herself ready for tomorrow. She'd missed Chris. She hated it when he wasn't there, especially now at this late stage of her pregnancy. She couldn't wait to see him again.

    Something was happening up ahead.

    Struggling to shuffle in her seat and move her cumbersome bulk while still keeping control of the car, Sonya peered into the near distance where she could see movement in sudden, unexpected directions. Her heart sank. That was all she needed. She was a couple of miles away from the nearest motorway exit. An accident now would most probably add hours to her journey. She'd been joking with Chris on the phone last night that if he kept making her do this drive she'd end up giving birth in the back of the car on the hard shoulder. The idea didn't seem so funny now...

    Whatever it was that was happening, it was quickly getting worse. Sonya could see the sudden red flashes of the lights of countless hastily applied brakes, burning brightly through the grey gloom of the early morning. Even over the sound of her own car's engine and the radio station she was listening to she could hear strained mechanical whines and squeals as drivers struggled to control their cars. Almost immediately the screaming brakes were replaced with grinding thuds and heavy groans and thumps as vehicle after vehicle after vehicle slammed and crashed into the back of the one in front, literally hundreds of them quickly forming a vast tangled carpet of twisted, wrecked metal along the entire visible length of the motorway.

    She had no time to react. It was getting closer now. There was no obvious way to avoid the carnage. Now it was starting to happen all around her.

    Forced to slam on her own brakes as the vehicles immediately ahead of her lurched to a sickening halt, Sonya braced herself for impact. She didn't know what she was going to hit, what was going to hit her or even from which direction the first impact would come. All around her every vehicle seemed to be losing control. Just ahead, in the rapidly disappearing gap between the front of her car and the huge pile up which filled the road, cars, vans and lorries were swerving and crisscrossing the carriageway as if their drivers had just given up and stopped trying to steer them. The first collision she felt came from the right as a solid four-wheel drive vehicle smashed into the passenger door behind her, the force of the shunt sending her car spinning round through almost one hundred and eighty degrees so that she found herself facing away from her original direction of travel. Now head on to the rest of the traffic, Sonya's shock and surprise gave way to utter disbelief and abject fear.

    An expensive executive's car was heading straight for her. For a few short seconds (which felt like painfully long minutes) Sonya watched the driver of the car thrashing about wildly. He was clawing at his neck with one hand, scratching and scraping at it desperately as he struggled unsuccessfully to hold onto the steering wheel with the other. His face was red and his eyes wide with pain. He was choking. Distracted as the car was rocked again by a collision from the left, she turned and looked out through her passenger window. A tanker had smashed into a van which had, in turn, smashed into her. The driver of the van had been hurled through his windscreen and now lay sprawled face down over the crumpled bonnet of his vehicle. His bloodied head slammed down onto the