With no snark whatsoever, this is the sequence of events in the original text:
---Bella hears screeching, looks up.
---Bella sees several things at once in clear detail. These include people other than Edward, Edward, and the van. Bella takes note of the fact that Edward is standing four cars down and the fact that the van is so close she doesn't even have time to close her eyes before it hits.
---Edward hits Bella. Bella lands such that she is "lying on the pavement behind the tan car [she'd] parked next to" looking back to the place whence she came. Edward lands on Bella. He is positioned such that he can stick his arms out in the direction Bella is looking. Bella does not yet know that the thing on top of her is a person.
---The spinning van spins around the end of Bella's truck (damaging both in the process) and continues its journey towards Bella.
---Edward swears. Bella realizes she is not alone.
---Edward sticks out his hands and stops the van.
---At this point the van is not yet settled. Edward's hands "moved so fast they blurred." One hand is used to grab the bottom of the van to prevent it from settling. The other hand is used to move Bella, swinging her "legs around like a rag doll's, till they hit the tire of the tan car."
---Edward drops the van which settles exactly where Bella's legs had been.
---"It was absolutely silent for one long second"
Showing posts with label Van Scene. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Van Scene. Show all posts
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Friday, September 30, 2011
The Van Scene, Physics Version
[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]
I pulled into the space between two cars -the one on the left was tan, the color of the other was indeterminate- then carefully got out of the truck. Even though I was careful I slipped and almost fell. I ended up pointed towards the rear end of the truck and noticed something unexpected. Some kind of metal on my tires. When I got closer I saw that the tires had been chained. I chalked up the fact that I hadn't noticed them before to off camera inaudibility, and decided to check to make sure that the chains were all well installed before heading to the school. The first one I'd seen, driver's side rear, looked fine. I walked, ever so carefully, to the other rear tire, thankful to whoever had put them on. I assumed Charlie, because I wasn't supposed to know that anyone else might have done it at this point.
Just as I concluded that the passenger side rear tire was securely chained I heard a noise behind me, I spun to look at it an saw several things all at once. Edward Cullen was four cars down from me. He was surrounded by a sea of faces but since I didn't care enough about the other people for them to have fixed location they instead existed in a sort of probability sea like the electron cloud surrounding an atom's nucleus. Most of the cars in the lot were similarly in flux, the only cars other than Edward's that had fixed locations were the ones between my truck and his car. They only existed so that I could count the distance, one car, two car, red car, Cullen car.
The most immediate concern was a blue van coming straight at me and spinning clockwise across the parking lot. I muttered a curse (Wo de ma he ta de fengkuang de waisheng dou) under my breath because it was spinning clockwise. If it was going to miss me I expected it to hit the car in front of me rather than the car behind and clockwise rotation meant it would tend to keep spinning towards me.
Of course, even if it had been spinning the other way it probably wouldn't have meant salvation, the rotational momentum would have never overpowered the the linear motion, but it would have been something at least. As it was I knew there was no way I could get out of the way in time on the ice. If I tried to run I'd fall. If I tried to walk I wouldn't get clear. I considered shoving off the truck and hoping to slide clear, but I found it impossible to move. Instead I watched all that happened with fascination that seemed detached from the danger.
The wheels appeared to be locked and squealing against the breaks. At the same time.
I was reminded of discussions about the cat in the box. They say that it's both alive and dead until the system is measured, but what does that look like if you're inside the box? I've always wondered. Maybe it looks like one thing and sounds like the other. Maybe it sounds like wheels squealing against the breaks, but it looks like locked tires. Or maybe it feels like one thing and smells like the other. What if the dead cat becomes a zombie cat, does it smell the live cat and then go into a frenzy?
And what if the cat doesn't just sit around in the box waiting for someone to let it out? What if it builds a blow torch and cuts its way out. A dead cat can't do that (forget about the zombie cat), a live cat absolutely would. (Have you ever seen a cat with blowtorch? They cannot be stopped.) What does it mean when the cat both does and does not cut a hole in the side of the box?
And what if it weren't a cat? What if it were a bomb? What if on an alien planet a group of quantum-religious freedom fighters put a bomb in a box to be set off by the decay of a radio active isotope counting on the god of probability to detonate it at the opportune moment, but fail to realize that they have shielded the box too well preventing the particle from being observed and thus leaving the bomb in a state of both exploded and unexploded and so for thousands of years the box remains sealed while the evil people grow in power and wipe out the neighboring peoples one by one until an offworld envoy is convinced by the last vestiges of the resistance to open the box so that the bomb will have had exploded at the opportune moment?
A laughably wrong interpretation of quantum mechanics? Perhaps. But do it right, never encourage the audience to think too much about it, and possibly throw in a claim it's more about faith than science and I think it could work.
Unfortunately for quantum mechanics and the future of narrative science, the state of the van's wheels never collapsed. They remained both squealing and locked.
I did get to see some wave forms collapse though. As the van moved through the probability sea of faces the positions of the various people, and cars as well, resolved. In each case they collapsed into a position which did not intersect with the path of the van. Well, in all but one. One advanced placement physics student actually did end up right in front of the van, but as an AP student he knew that there must be holes in empty space and simply stepped back into the Dirac Sea, allowing the van to pass him by without difficulty, then he clawed himself back out and was absolutely drenched, dripping with positrons.
As the van spun inexorably closer to me it began to seem like I was actually going to die. Then Edward Cullen disappeared. He had sprung into action. I don't know why exactly, but I think it might be that he realized I was the narrator and without me he would cease to exist. Regardless I found myself thinking about a discussion of the relationship between vampires and wormholes I'd read scribbled in the margins of one of the appendices in the back of “If You Give a Mouse a Communion Wafer.” When I read it it had seemed absurd, but now it seemed very relevant. On the other hand the thunderclap implied that he had forced his way through the air at a high enough speed to leave a vacuum or near vacuum in his wake.
Analysis of the interference pattern created when he impacted my side suggested that he may have actually traveled both paths simultaneously.
He hit me hard and I hit the ground hard. With my head. It actually made a cracking sound. That couldn't possibly be good. His cold hard body was on top of mine pressing me down, which wasn't comfortable at all, but worse than that was the fact that I landed facing out into the middle of the parking lot and couldn't see what was happening.
His weight lifted off of me, and then he lifted me. He rotated me so that I was facing back towards my truck.
Better?
Much. Thank you.
The van's clockwise rotation was bringing it around my truck, the sound of warping grinding tearing metal was giving me a horrible headache, or maybe that had something to do with the fact my head hit the ground so hard. When Edward saw that the van would still hit us he swore (Aiya! Huaile. ) He raised his hands protectively, but I was convinced that given the lack of purchase on the ice we'd just end up being flung backwards into the car behind us. Splattered in a different way perhaps, but still dead.
Then something happened that I didn't expect. His smooth uncomfortably rock hard skin started to change. It small bristles came out of it, then the bristles split, and each of the split parts split again, split end upon split end in a near fractal that seemed to go on forever, until they interacted at the molecular level, holding him to me and us to the ice.
It seemed as reasonable a way to keep us stationary as any, but I wondered: was the Van der Waals force strong enough to make this work?
You're over-thinking things. This isn't the kind of story where that matters.
Fine.
The van made contact and I saw a shock wave ripple out across its side as metal crumpled inward forming a large dent around Edward's hands. The van tried to keep on coming forward, but Edward's geckoness held us firm. The result was that van shuddered and lifted off the ground on the side facing us. There was a bit of fiddling and juggling to get arranged so that the van could be set down without damaging me.
After a moment people started shouting but I mostly zoned out, trying to process everything that had happened. Why had the van been going fast enough to cause that much destruction anyway? Edward said something but I wasn't really listening.
I said, “Are you all right?”
“I'm fine.” I said, “What about the guy in the van?”
I'm sure Tyler will be fine.
Edward callously ignored the driver of the van who might even now--
Fine, I'll check on Tyler.
He decided to make a show of concern for Tyler, but it didn't seem to have been out of any kind of compassion--
Seriously?
It was as if he had read my mind and wanted to prove me wrong.
I can't actually read you mind. I just got an advanced copy of the book and I've been reading along.
This is my book. Stop interrupting the narration. Your book will come out in a couple years, then you get to narrate. Until then you're only allowed to talk in dialog.
Edward snapped, “Fine! Checking on Tyler,” then ripped the driver's side door off the van. He leaned in, looked Tyler over, checked his pulse, tested him to make sure he was aware and oriented times three, and then returned and angrily said, “Tyler's fine, are you happy--” The anger melted from his face, replaced by wonder and amusement, and he said, “Check out positron boy.” He pointed behind me, in the direction the van and he had come from. “I thought I looked weird.”
I looked to see the advanced placement physics student standing in a puddle of positrons while more evaporated off of him, each glowing in a different color as it disappeared. The effect was like being in a cloud of sparkles in all the colors of the rainbow. I'm reasonably sure that positrons do not work that way. At all.
Of all the things-
“Sorry, sorry,” Edward said. “Of all the things that are wrong with this story, that's the one that you fixate on?”
In fact, on reflection, I don't think that the Dirac Sea should have had any positrons in it in the first place. My recollection is that positrons and the Dirac Sea come from mutually exclusive theories. To have positrons result in rainbow sparkles was completely absurd, positrons picked up during a dip in the Dirac Sea even more so.
This entire story is absurd. I have ice cold marble skin that sparkles like diamonds in the sunlight. Nothing in this book makes-
Edward was jealous.
I am not jealous!
He was definitely jealous.
Just as I concluded that the passenger side rear tire was securely chained I heard a noise behind me, I spun to look at it an saw several things all at once. Edward Cullen was four cars down from me. He was surrounded by a sea of faces but since I didn't care enough about the other people for them to have fixed location they instead existed in a sort of probability sea like the electron cloud surrounding an atom's nucleus. Most of the cars in the lot were similarly in flux, the only cars other than Edward's that had fixed locations were the ones between my truck and his car. They only existed so that I could count the distance, one car, two car, red car, Cullen car.
The most immediate concern was a blue van coming straight at me and spinning clockwise across the parking lot. I muttered a curse (Wo de ma he ta de fengkuang de waisheng dou) under my breath because it was spinning clockwise. If it was going to miss me I expected it to hit the car in front of me rather than the car behind and clockwise rotation meant it would tend to keep spinning towards me.
Of course, even if it had been spinning the other way it probably wouldn't have meant salvation, the rotational momentum would have never overpowered the the linear motion, but it would have been something at least. As it was I knew there was no way I could get out of the way in time on the ice. If I tried to run I'd fall. If I tried to walk I wouldn't get clear. I considered shoving off the truck and hoping to slide clear, but I found it impossible to move. Instead I watched all that happened with fascination that seemed detached from the danger.
The wheels appeared to be locked and squealing against the breaks. At the same time.
I was reminded of discussions about the cat in the box. They say that it's both alive and dead until the system is measured, but what does that look like if you're inside the box? I've always wondered. Maybe it looks like one thing and sounds like the other. Maybe it sounds like wheels squealing against the breaks, but it looks like locked tires. Or maybe it feels like one thing and smells like the other. What if the dead cat becomes a zombie cat, does it smell the live cat and then go into a frenzy?
And what if the cat doesn't just sit around in the box waiting for someone to let it out? What if it builds a blow torch and cuts its way out. A dead cat can't do that (forget about the zombie cat), a live cat absolutely would. (Have you ever seen a cat with blowtorch? They cannot be stopped.) What does it mean when the cat both does and does not cut a hole in the side of the box?
And what if it weren't a cat? What if it were a bomb? What if on an alien planet a group of quantum-religious freedom fighters put a bomb in a box to be set off by the decay of a radio active isotope counting on the god of probability to detonate it at the opportune moment, but fail to realize that they have shielded the box too well preventing the particle from being observed and thus leaving the bomb in a state of both exploded and unexploded and so for thousands of years the box remains sealed while the evil people grow in power and wipe out the neighboring peoples one by one until an offworld envoy is convinced by the last vestiges of the resistance to open the box so that the bomb will have had exploded at the opportune moment?
A laughably wrong interpretation of quantum mechanics? Perhaps. But do it right, never encourage the audience to think too much about it, and possibly throw in a claim it's more about faith than science and I think it could work.
Unfortunately for quantum mechanics and the future of narrative science, the state of the van's wheels never collapsed. They remained both squealing and locked.
I did get to see some wave forms collapse though. As the van moved through the probability sea of faces the positions of the various people, and cars as well, resolved. In each case they collapsed into a position which did not intersect with the path of the van. Well, in all but one. One advanced placement physics student actually did end up right in front of the van, but as an AP student he knew that there must be holes in empty space and simply stepped back into the Dirac Sea, allowing the van to pass him by without difficulty, then he clawed himself back out and was absolutely drenched, dripping with positrons.
As the van spun inexorably closer to me it began to seem like I was actually going to die. Then Edward Cullen disappeared. He had sprung into action. I don't know why exactly, but I think it might be that he realized I was the narrator and without me he would cease to exist. Regardless I found myself thinking about a discussion of the relationship between vampires and wormholes I'd read scribbled in the margins of one of the appendices in the back of “If You Give a Mouse a Communion Wafer.” When I read it it had seemed absurd, but now it seemed very relevant. On the other hand the thunderclap implied that he had forced his way through the air at a high enough speed to leave a vacuum or near vacuum in his wake.
Analysis of the interference pattern created when he impacted my side suggested that he may have actually traveled both paths simultaneously.
He hit me hard and I hit the ground hard. With my head. It actually made a cracking sound. That couldn't possibly be good. His cold hard body was on top of mine pressing me down, which wasn't comfortable at all, but worse than that was the fact that I landed facing out into the middle of the parking lot and couldn't see what was happening.
His weight lifted off of me, and then he lifted me. He rotated me so that I was facing back towards my truck.
Better?
Much. Thank you.
The van's clockwise rotation was bringing it around my truck, the sound of warping grinding tearing metal was giving me a horrible headache, or maybe that had something to do with the fact my head hit the ground so hard. When Edward saw that the van would still hit us he swore (Aiya! Huaile. ) He raised his hands protectively, but I was convinced that given the lack of purchase on the ice we'd just end up being flung backwards into the car behind us. Splattered in a different way perhaps, but still dead.
Then something happened that I didn't expect. His smooth uncomfortably rock hard skin started to change. It small bristles came out of it, then the bristles split, and each of the split parts split again, split end upon split end in a near fractal that seemed to go on forever, until they interacted at the molecular level, holding him to me and us to the ice.
It seemed as reasonable a way to keep us stationary as any, but I wondered: was the Van der Waals force strong enough to make this work?
You're over-thinking things. This isn't the kind of story where that matters.
Fine.
The van made contact and I saw a shock wave ripple out across its side as metal crumpled inward forming a large dent around Edward's hands. The van tried to keep on coming forward, but Edward's geckoness held us firm. The result was that van shuddered and lifted off the ground on the side facing us. There was a bit of fiddling and juggling to get arranged so that the van could be set down without damaging me.
After a moment people started shouting but I mostly zoned out, trying to process everything that had happened. Why had the van been going fast enough to cause that much destruction anyway? Edward said something but I wasn't really listening.
I said, “Are you all right?”
“I'm fine.” I said, “What about the guy in the van?”
I'm sure Tyler will be fine.
Edward callously ignored the driver of the van who might even now--
Fine, I'll check on Tyler.
He decided to make a show of concern for Tyler, but it didn't seem to have been out of any kind of compassion--
Seriously?
It was as if he had read my mind and wanted to prove me wrong.
I can't actually read you mind. I just got an advanced copy of the book and I've been reading along.
This is my book. Stop interrupting the narration. Your book will come out in a couple years, then you get to narrate. Until then you're only allowed to talk in dialog.
Edward snapped, “Fine! Checking on Tyler,” then ripped the driver's side door off the van. He leaned in, looked Tyler over, checked his pulse, tested him to make sure he was aware and oriented times three, and then returned and angrily said, “Tyler's fine, are you happy--” The anger melted from his face, replaced by wonder and amusement, and he said, “Check out positron boy.” He pointed behind me, in the direction the van and he had come from. “I thought I looked weird.”
I looked to see the advanced placement physics student standing in a puddle of positrons while more evaporated off of him, each glowing in a different color as it disappeared. The effect was like being in a cloud of sparkles in all the colors of the rainbow. I'm reasonably sure that positrons do not work that way. At all.
Of all the things-
“Sorry, sorry,” Edward said. “Of all the things that are wrong with this story, that's the one that you fixate on?”
In fact, on reflection, I don't think that the Dirac Sea should have had any positrons in it in the first place. My recollection is that positrons and the Dirac Sea come from mutually exclusive theories. To have positrons result in rainbow sparkles was completely absurd, positrons picked up during a dip in the Dirac Sea even more so.
This entire story is absurd. I have ice cold marble skin that sparkles like diamonds in the sunlight. Nothing in this book makes-
Edward was jealous.
I am not jealous!
He was definitely jealous.
Snarky Twilight - Van Scene
[Note that this is before I went to the original text and read every word myself, it isn't entirely accurate as a result. Also note that this is the post that started Snarky Twilight.]
Just before I heard the shattering crunch of the van folding around the truck bed, Edward hit me, hard.
Crack!
Bella: (She's in real pain, but this is as much an expression of disapproval as pain, she draws the word out when she speaks it): Ow.
Edward: Quiet, I'm trying to save you.
Bella: I get that, but did you have bounce my head off the pavement like a basketball?
Edward: I'm saving you, shut up.
Bella: If you're saving me how come we're still in the path of the van?
Edward: Because this way I get to show off my inhuman powers.
Bella: You already did that just by getting to me so quickly.
Edward: I was right next to you.
Bella: Were not.
Edward: Was too.
Bella: (fed up, pointing) Van.
Two long, white hands shot out protectively in front of me, and the van shuddered to a stop a foot from my face, the large hands fitting providentially into a deep dent in the side of the van's body.
Bella: We're on slippery ice, why didn't we go flying backwards?
Edward: My foot is on your truck.
I turned to see a giant dent in my truck, Edward's left foot planted directly in the middle of it.
Bella: (Sarcastic) Great.
Crack!
Bella: (She's in real pain, but this is as much an expression of disapproval as pain, she draws the word out when she speaks it): Ow.
Edward: Quiet, I'm trying to save you.
Bella: I get that, but did you have bounce my head off the pavement like a basketball?
Edward: I'm saving you, shut up.
Bella: If you're saving me how come we're still in the path of the van?
Edward: Because this way I get to show off my inhuman powers.
Bella: You already did that just by getting to me so quickly.
Edward: I was right next to you.
Bella: Were not.
Edward: Was too.
Bella: (fed up, pointing) Van.
Two long, white hands shot out protectively in front of me, and the van shuddered to a stop a foot from my face, the large hands fitting providentially into a deep dent in the side of the van's body.
Bella: We're on slippery ice, why didn't we go flying backwards?
Edward: My foot is on your truck.
I turned to see a giant dent in my truck, Edward's left foot planted directly in the middle of it.
Bella: (Sarcastic) Great.
Twilight Van Scene Variation 2
[One of four variations on the van scene, the only one without a real name]
Suddenly someone was right next to me, I heard him order, "Down," but he didn't wait for me to respond, instead forcing me onto the ground and under the truck, but we stopped short, side by side on the ice, more than half under the truck but still exposed, and the van was still coming. The word, "Merda," was uttered and I saw his left hand shoot out in front of us for protection while his right pushed me further down on the ice and pulled me closer to him.
It seemed like a futile gesture, but when the van reached his hand instead of crunching bones the result was that enough of the momentum transferred to us that we slid to safety. It wasn't comfortable, I was sure I'd have a bruise where he'd been holding on to me with his right hand and my left side, the side pressed into his, wasn't exactly happy about the whole thing, but we were alive.
He let go of me. There was a moment of silence when I couldn't find my voice and then I asked, "Are you all right?" while sliding out from under the truck.
He seemed surprised, "Am I alright?"
I said, "The van hit your hand," as I stood, holding on to the truck for support.
He said, "No it didn't."
This didn't make any sense. He had to know hit had hit him, even if he had somehow avoided major injury the pain should have been unthinkable. I couldn't understand why he'd deny it and I said, "I saw it."
"Look, " he showed me his right hand, "My hand is fine."
"Your other hand."
He showed it to me, "That one's fine too."
I stared at it in disbelief, there was no indication that it had been hurt at all. "That doesn't make any sense."
"Can we please talk about something else?"
I'd never heard him like that before. His tone was pleading. I knew what I'd seen, and knew that there was something very strange going on, but I decided not to press the matter because he obviously didn't want to talk about it. I changed the subject, "What was that you said when the van was coming at us?"
"I said, 'Down.'"
"After that."
"It was nothing."
"It was something."
"It was Latin," he said as if it were some inappropriate admission.
"Latin?"
"I figure if you're going to be vulgar, why not use the language that has it right in the name?"
It seemed like a futile gesture, but when the van reached his hand instead of crunching bones the result was that enough of the momentum transferred to us that we slid to safety. It wasn't comfortable, I was sure I'd have a bruise where he'd been holding on to me with his right hand and my left side, the side pressed into his, wasn't exactly happy about the whole thing, but we were alive.
He let go of me. There was a moment of silence when I couldn't find my voice and then I asked, "Are you all right?" while sliding out from under the truck.
He seemed surprised, "Am I alright?"
I said, "The van hit your hand," as I stood, holding on to the truck for support.
He said, "No it didn't."
This didn't make any sense. He had to know hit had hit him, even if he had somehow avoided major injury the pain should have been unthinkable. I couldn't understand why he'd deny it and I said, "I saw it."
"Look, " he showed me his right hand, "My hand is fine."
"Your other hand."
He showed it to me, "That one's fine too."
I stared at it in disbelief, there was no indication that it had been hurt at all. "That doesn't make any sense."
"Can we please talk about something else?"
I'd never heard him like that before. His tone was pleading. I knew what I'd seen, and knew that there was something very strange going on, but I decided not to press the matter because he obviously didn't want to talk about it. I changed the subject, "What was that you said when the van was coming at us?"
"I said, 'Down.'"
"After that."
"It was nothing."
"It was something."
"It was Latin," he said as if it were some inappropriate admission.
"Latin?"
"I figure if you're going to be vulgar, why not use the language that has it right in the name?"
Edith and Ben - Van Scene
[This is the story that started Edith and Ben]
When I reached the school I was one of the first to arrive, the ice must have slowed everyone down. The parking lot was almost entirely empty, I pulled to the far side, reasoning that it would be easier to stay standing on the grass, transformed into an alien landscape by the ice coating every blade, than on the smooth surface of the ice covered parking lot. I wasn't the only one to have had this idea as the few other cars in the lot were all in a row where I had planed to park. I pulled into a space at the end of the row. When I was stopped and the engine was off I said a prayer of thanks to the gods of automobiles for allowing me to make it this far, then I stepped outside to figure out why the hell the ride over had sounded so strange.
It was a relief to see that it wasn't because there was something wrong with the truck, it was because something was right with it. Charlize had installed chains on my tires. I was grateful, especially since it seemed like she'd probably done it when the freezing rain was still falling. She should have asked me for help rather than doing it alone, but the fact that she'd done it, and apparently not wanted to inconvenience me by asking for help, was touching. I really appreciated it and it was one of the first times I felt truly good about something since arriving.
Then there was a high pitched sound that couldn't possibly be good. I turned to face it, keeping one hand on the truck to make sure I didn't loose my balance. A feeling of dread set in when I saw the few students already in the parking lot, Edith Cullen stood out among the faces, all looking at me. The disturbing thing wasn't that they were all looking at me, it was how they were all looking at me. A mixture of shock and horror. When I'd turned far enough to see the source of the sound I saw why.
The blue van had probably started it's screeching journey at the other side of the empty parking lot, but it had already closed much of the gap and it was headed straight for me.
There were any number of things I probably should have thought or done, but I didn't think anything, I panicked. I let go of the truck and tried to run. It was a bad idea, my feet slid right out from under me. I was falling, the van was coming, and I was convinced I was about to die.
My life didn't flash before my eyes. I didn't think about all the things I wished I'd done or said. I didn't reach any epiphanies. I just came to the conclusion, with an unexpected feeling of calm, that the van I was staring at would kill me.
Then something hit me from the left, I felt it latch on to my waist and the entire world spun. I was no longer looking at the van but instead staring up that the clouds. I wasn't falling straight down, but being carried by the impact and the grip on my waist in the direction that had been rightward, though as I twisted it became backward.
There was an ear rending sound that I knew must have been the van slamming into my truck.
I landed on my back. What I hit was hard and cold, but it wasn't smooth enough to be the ice and I wasn't sliding against it even though I was pretty sure I was still moving. People started calling my name.
When I stopped moving the grip on my waist released and I rolled off of what turned out to be Edith. I tried to stand up, at first I slipped on the ice, but I managed to avoid falling and I stood on the second try. I waved in the direction of the other students to let them know I was alive, offered Edith my hand to help her up, and tried to thank her for saving my life. "Thanks for-" was as far as I got. She when she took my hand there was something I couldn't help but notice. "You're freezing," I said just as she got to her feet.
She quickly pulled her hand away, "What?"
"Your hand is freezing."
"I'll be fine once I have a chance to warm up," she sounded almost defensive.
"Are you sure because-"
"Ben, have some perspective." She pointed in the general direction of the blue van, my truck, and the car I'd parked next to, which were now part of one big accident scene. "You were almost killed by a rampaging van; my hands are cold."
Obviously she was right that in context it seemed like an insignificant thing to focus on, but her hand really hand been as cold as ice. I didn't want the person who saved me to die of hypothermia. On the other hand, I didn't want to annoy the person who saved me. So I dropped it. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Thanks for saving me." She said I was welcome. Then I started to wonder something, "How'd you get to me so fast?"
"I ran really fast."
"But you were-"
"Really, really fast." There was a moment of silence and then she again gestured to the accident asked, "Shall we?" We started over to survey the damage. I slipped, but she caught my arm and steadied me before I could fall.
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