A child recalls their experience in the backseat of their father’s car.

Car door slams. A man jumps out. Stands in front of the windshield. Looks at me through the glass. I’m in the backseat and the baby is in the car seat and she’s screaming I think because it’s hot in here and Dad forgot to leave the AC on.

A man gets onto the bridge’s walkway and looks back at me again and I can’t remember his face, can’t remember, but he waves at me and his mouth opens and closes kinda like a fish, the fish that flop on the boat deck when dad takes me fishing. I catch one and he’s smiling at me but it slips out of my hands and hits the floor, gasping for oxygen until he throws it back overboard.

A man is on the Golden Gate Bridge and he’s standing at the barrier between the walkway and the open sea and god it’s hot in this car because Dad forgot to leave the AC on. The man on the Golden Gate Bridge is tall and from behind looks a lot like my dad, a lot like my dad broad-shouldered and caped in flannel and moving all long-limbed like my dad but he can’t be because Dad is taking us on a road trip and he’s coming back and I know he is because he said so and I believe him. 

But the car is stopped on the side of the road. I’m watching a man sit on the barrier of the bridge and he doesn’t look back at me anymore but he’s rigid like stone and I can’t remember his face please I can’t remember but Dad says that when you catch a fish out of the water you should always let them go. Always let them go. Flopping fish on the boat deck. Starved for oxygen. Lips cut from the fishing hook. 

A man jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge. One second. One second and gone.

Process

Above all, I wanted to capture an unheard-of perspective. so I put myself into the mind of a child undergoing an undeniably traumatic experience. The piece was written in the “Stream of Consciousness” style to depict the unbridled, sometimes erratic thoughts that plague our minds in times of distress. It was written in one sitting for an “Unconventional Literature” class and is intended to be read aloud.