Excerpt from "Yesterday and Today" Part 2

Ok, here's part 2. DO NOT READ IT. Unless you have read part 1. Otherwise it's just not sensible, you know?


       One second.
       His eyes met her face. He perused it, explored it. Twenty-three? Twenty-four? She had those small lines of concern, of worldly experience. She surely must have been a bit younger than him!... but she looked tired, worn-out. Is this the same girl who had been doing the dance? he thought. How strange, how…
       But suddenly he could think no more. The ringing in his mind grew fiercely loud and the barriers between the mind and senses crumbled, flooding his whole being with feeling. His skin burned, his tongue was dry, a storm exploded in his head. He could not think. A thunderous grayness enveloped his mind. The words which had flowed so airily through his mind were buried in the flood. He could not hear, he could not feel, he could not smell.
       He could still see. He could do nothing but see, and watch; his whole being numbed with a buzzing paralysis. Everything now unfolded like a movie. His vision narrowed, flattened, focused only on her face, her face which seemed inches from his now, turned so that he could see both eyes.
       One-half second.
       Her eyes filled his vision. Her eyes did not meet his. He watched as they widened, staring at something far beyond him. The pupils dilated into large, black holes. He could see the blood vessels around them, shooting out into the whites, pulsating. He could do nothing but watch.
       One-quarter second.
       Her eyes grew dull, the lids relaxing together in surrender. Rolling lazily to the side, they met his. And stopped. He was awash in sensation. This was it. Everything froze. They held the stare.
       Zero seconds.
       The square-paneled mirror cut into his field of vision from the left, gradually blocking her face from view. One eye. No eyes. The stare interrupted, his focus released. He now saw everything. A body. A mirror where a head should be. A truck attached to the mirror. Sirens. The buzz was unbearable.
       Pop.
       It was one noise, a single moment of contact. No complexity. Shattered bone, smashed tissue, horrifying, gruesome, tragic – everything left to imagination. Just a simple pop. A faint pink puff appeared to the right side of the mirror. Her hands jerked. Her feet lifted from the ground. She flipped like a doll, arms flung overhead. The truck had passed. As she spun, he caught a glimpse of what had been her face. There was no more face. The nose was gone, eyes were buried behind flaps of raw red-and-white tissue. One more flip. This time her extended arms brushed the pavement and the continued rotation of the strung-out body brought her legs smashing to the ground. She crumpled, falling forward onto her knees, chest, and finally her face. What had been a face. The hands hit the ground last. The fingers on the right one twitched.
       The roar in his head subsided, his mind was released and his senses returned to something near normal. The stale air in his lungs tumbled out and he began to breathe again. He could think again. I feel nothing, he thought, testing his emotions...



The guy goes on to an interesting philosophical crisis, and other stuff happens. Hopefully, it's all quite compelling. That was my intent in the writing of the book, of course.