The Mac G4 Powerbook wasn't charging, and I couldn't figure out why. Then I noticed that the light on the surge protector wasn't lit, meaning the laptop must need another power cord. After calling around, a small computer store in Bridgewater had the rare item in stock. I left Wolfville at 3:00 PM, still tired from a sleepless night up with a sick dog while the cats ran around on the hardwood floors like it had rained catnip.

I bought the cord and fueled up at Exit 12, grabbing an apple and some cheese to curb the hunger until I got back to the Valley. A girl that worked at Kao's Chinese Buffet in New Minas was coming over after work tonight for the first time, and there was some cleaning to be done; Penny had left a parting gift of odd-coloured barf on the porch mat just as I had left, and the sink was full of dirty dishes.

With the laptop operational again, the three Christmas videos that were only partially completed could still make Friday's deadline. The desktop Mac at home would have made this Bridgewater trip unnecessary if not for several key video files stored in the laptop's inaccessible hard drive. The holidays seemed to be more about rushing around making ends meet these days, and hardly resembled the television commercials with families sitting around on the living room rug in fits of laughter. In the malls, shoppers elbowed through crowded isles at break-neck speeds, filling carts with plastic and cotton simply because they felt so-and-so would expect at least a little something from them. Some enjoyed Christmas because they liked to shop; others looked forward to extra cash from their employer; only a few, it seemed, embraced the magic of Santa or celebration of Christ anymore. I told myself I was being a Grinch, and turned up the Kalen Porter song I'd cursed so often before.

"Mary did you know..."

The back of the big white Chev extended-cab in front suddenly braked, and the gap between us narrowed before my brain understood what my eyes were screaming to it. A rear bearing had been replaced in the Subaru the week before, and the folks at Midas Muffler had not put the brakes back together in their original state. The anti-lock brakes light had been coming on frequently, and the pads often slipped when forced to obey red lights. As I swerved to the left on the divided section of highway, me eyes caught the orange ABS light glowing from the dashboard as the Subaru headed for the grass median, sliding ever more sideways as it neared.

The left wheels caught the mud and grass, with 1285 kilograms of metal travelling at 95 kms/hr close behind. There was no time to put on a seatbelt, but that single second was an eternity to the neurons firing off beneath my skull. When the brain can offer no suggestions to avoid impending doom, it tends to distract itself with unrelated thoughts until the threat passes. My brain, who I'd come to respect despite its reluctance to follow regular brain protocol, passed the time by reminding me that the litter box at home was almost full, and that if I didn't return tonight the cats would be shitting on the floor by morning. It gave a brief slideshow of a hospital bed that hovered without legs, a tadpole with a bite taken out of it, the magnified image of a rotting tooth, then quickly flashed through everyone I'd ever come to love, as though it had misjudged the presentation's time limit. Then I started flipping.

I held the steering wheel like a winning Super-7 ticket. I think I said, "Oh shit!", but I'm not sure. Then there was glass and mud that was hard to see through the octopus ink that my considerate friend Adrenaline released to blur my vision, shielding visions I'd probably rather not see. And then, everything stopped moving.

If it wasn't for the hissing sound of a tire losing air, I might say that the next few moments were relatively peaceful. But my brain, the pessimist that it is, decided the noise could only be gas leaking through a pin-hole in the tank, and that it was going to need my body to complete the last-second Van Damme dive away from the car as it exploded. When both of them were about twenty feet away, action surrendered to consequence. The sunroof had flew about a hundred feet away, the roof had caved in; everything big and small that had lived in the dash and console were now residents of the mucky median. The brain ran a systems check, ignored the slight neck pain and head lump, and faxed a search and rescue order to find the cell phone down to my body.

The guy in the truck had called 911, recommending they send everyone there to where he now stood. An old man in a FireFly had decided that stopping abruptly for the small cardboard box in the road would be better than detouring around it, and the guy behind him in the Chev used his new-truck brakes to avoid an insurance claim. I couldn't see the FireFly or the box, and chose the path less taken.

Men from four firetrucks, three squad cars, and an ambulance all stood around and lazily chit-chatted with the other two drivers, speaking into open windows of cars that crept up the 103. There was no motivation to put their training in action because the driver of the mangled Subaru had survived with only a small glass-cut on his left hand. They all said I was lucky to be alive, lucky not to be in the hospital for Christmas, lucky that the mucky grass broke the fall. I grumbled that I was shit out of luck for a ride home.

I cursed the fact that none of them had a light for someone who needed a smoke. The monetary value of the car and the expenses invested into it overcame my thoughts. The coming days that spent renting a car to then look for another car made my shoulders slump. The decision to only get PLPD insurance instead of Collision inspired a sigh and a shake of the head.

I dealt with the formalities of police statements ("...so then I swerved and crashed...") and stripping for the emergency responders ("...better go over everything again just to be sure..."), then I grabbed a lift back to the fire hall with a guy named Martin, the only person out of thirty bystanders that smoked. I looked behind to see the Subaru wenched out the way a mortician might roll over a body. Martin said I was lucky. "So they say," I mumbled.

Two cab companies refused to go as far as the Valley, but the third said it would send someone soon. I paced in the fire department as a dozen guys arranged schedules for truck cleaning and equipment maintenance. The cab finally came, and an old guy in a Cadillac cheerfully asked, "How's it hangin'?" as I got in. He had bought the car for $800 three months ago and decided to screw a taxi light in the top. He called his 43 year old girlfriend in Chester and asked if she wanted to keep him company on the trek to Wolfville. She told him she didn't, but they talked a while about plans for a Cuban vacation this winter and whether or not the clothes in the hallway were clean.. He hung up and we talked about lots of things, and he was really quite interesting.

A cop came up behind us near Aldersville while we were stuck behind a car going sixty. She swerved around us and slipped in behind the slow car, flashing on her lights. The cabbie said he didn't like getting driving fines because they were like throwing your money away. He said money comes and goes, but if you don't waste it there always seems to be enough around. I told him he had a point, then suddenly realized he really did have a point. The cell phone was lost, the credit and bank cards in the console were gone...but here I was on my way home and only out a twelve-year-old car, an electronic gadget found in every mall, and a couple thin rectangles of plastic. So I asked him about his family and his Christmas plans, and soon realized that his stories were better than my play-by-play of the brief instant when a hunk of metal left the road. And when we had almost descended the South Mountain into the Valley, he asked if I minded if he smoked. I told him I thought he'd never ask.

So, with a stiff neck angled awkwardly down at the keyboard, The Hawk Road wishes everyone a Merry Christmas, especially those that came after the picture of the rotted tooth. Remember that there should be at least a few moments this holiday when you find yourself in a room filled with love for one another, and that the rest of the time spent aching to leave that same room is natural. When you fall asleep on the night of December 25th and Christmas is unofficially over, you will have already forgotten about the over-packaged and over-priced things littered under the tree. It's the endless poking Uncle Bub gave you in the ribs while everyone watched Great-Grandma Edith open her gifts that will stick in your mind 'till next Christmas. The theme of family values and community have lined Hollywood's walls for decades, but at the end of the day, they're a hell of a lot more entertaining than tales of car-crashes and greed.