A Crash in Killarney – Ireland

A Crash in Killarney

Ireland

I’m in Killarney — for the second time today and wishing this was one story I didn’t have to tell — sometimes nightmares do come true. I left Dingle early, came to Killarney, and walked awhile in the national park — more of a city park, really, than the wild ones we’re used to in America. I ate lunch and about 2:30 p.m. left for the Rock of Cashel, another fortress. I got off on another of those roads to nowhere (surprise!) and finally decided to turn around. I have no excuses or rationalizations for what happened next; I was tired and simply lost concentration. I started back the way I had come, trying to remember where I had made a wrong turn. Suddenly, a feeling of something not quite right hit me; but before I could react, a small lorry came charging around the bend on my side of the road (actually, his side). All I had time to do was shut my eyes (I have a horror of glass getting into them)–and no, your life doesn’t flash before your eyes, just the thought, “Crappola!” I guess T.S. Eliot was both right and wrong: the way the world ends is not with a bang or a whimper, but both.

Time, motion, and sound were suspended for an indeterminate while, but I finally noticed what appeared to be smoke pouring from the dashboard (it turned out to be steam); and I thought it might be a good idea to vacate the premises. The doors were jammed, so I kicked one open. I crawled out, leaned on the top of the car, and looked at my fellow impactees; they seemed a trifle disconcerted but otherwise okay. As it turned out the truck had relatively minor damage, but my car was totaled. When we hit, I was still in third gear, and the other driver had slowed somewhat for the corner, so our combined speeds were only seventy or eighty miles an hour. Our bumpers were locked, and my car had apparently been shoved back a ways; it could have been worse.

Eventually, the Garda came, took a report, and the lorry limped off. No one made me feel like an idiot — no one had to. One of the Garda even explained that these wrong-side-of-the-road accidents almost always happened like mine: a turn onto a road without lines and the person at fault driving alone. They took me back to Killarney and the car rental office. The people there didn’t make me feel stupid either; but since this was on a Saturday and the insurance office didn’t open until Monday, there was no way to get another car — which I doubt they would have given me anyway.

So, I’m back to public transportation. Would I drive again in the UK or Ireland? Maybe foolishly, the answer right now is “yes.” But that could be bravado; in a day or two I might not be so sure. By the way, my daughter (a travel agent) talked me into full coverage; I didn’t have to pay a penny.

How am I? Thanks for asking: I’m grateful, depressed, and angry (at myself) in no special order and at various times to varying degrees. I got a bed and breakfast in Killarney and spent three hours walking around in the rain, much to keyed up to sit still. Physically I appear to be okay; no one suggested a checkup. If you’re walking and coherent, apparently everybody figures you’re all right. My left hand is pretty well scraped up, probably from the airbag deployment. Over the next few days I suspect I’ll discover some aches and bruises, but I think it’s depression I’ll have to fight off. That is from an old perfection thing: come on, I should be able to drive around Ireland without a head on–or, figuratively speaking, was that what I was doing?

My night in Killarney was restless, full of ugly dreams; at times the daylight hasn’t been much better. I close my eyes for a few moments and…unbidden, the lorry appears, barreling around the curve, the windscreen framing the open mouthed face of the driver. I feel that moment of astonishing impact, the explosion seeming to come from inside of me. Next, I relive those awful seconds when time and space are suspended and the silence is absolute; and then, finally, I begin to breathe, as the world ever so slowly reclaims me. I will the images to go away, but they won’t, replaying in an endless loop behind my eyelids. Perhaps, somehow, they’re a semi-conscious reminder of that mysterious event, common to us all, but which we can never remember: the time we were expelled from the warm, comforting darkness into the harsh light of reality.

I am sure these images will slowly fade along with the aches and bruises. I am somewhat stiff-necked, a bit more pharisaical than usual; but on the upside I hardly notice the occasional plaintive moo emanating from the calf muscle I tore the other day. I do have a constant headache, so I probably suffered a mild concussion. Last night as I walked about Killarney, I stopped at a bookstore and picked up a volume of poems by Seamus Heaney, Ireland’s Nobel Prize winner; he, too, is helping to keep things in perspective.

And, all in all, I suppose, as usual, that I’ve been concentrating on the wrong aspects of the experience. After all, I’m alive, I’m ambulatory, and Wales awaits me just across the Irish Sea.

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