Brother Broken

Foreword Clarion Review 

Alf Reads about a windshield...

When Mitch was six years old, he got us all into trouble with Dad. It happened at my grandparents’ farm. A few of us were sitting on the trunk of the car, waiting to leave for home. Mitch ran a toy tractor down the surface of the rear windshield.

One moment, the windshield was in perfect condition and the next, it had morphed into a mosaic pattern of splintered glass. I watched, dumbstruck, as a star burst emerged from the centre of the windshield outward. It looked like a spider had webbed a silica net. Dad was pissed, but the windshield held.

As we ventured home that day, all of us in the back seat exhibited forward-focused, model behaviour for a change. We sat quietly so as to not bring attention to ourselves. We tried communicating with hand signals, but the messages were too cryptic to decipher.

Dad drove the car down the six-mile stretch of road going home. We rode in silence except for the sound of the motor and the crunch of tire against gravel. Fields and ditches rushed past our view. The ride was relatively smooth, until we hit a bump.

A sound like a gunshot went off behind us. The windshield imploded. Projectiles struck the backs of our heads. Glass shards rained down on us, dropping like ice chips into our shirt collars and onto our laps. I let out a shriek because I didn’t know what was happening.

Dad stopped the car on the side of the road. It took a minute for me to realize we hadn’t hit the rhubarb. No one was hurt, but my nerves were frayed by the close call.

We climbed out of the car, shaking off bits of glass. It took a while to clean the debris out of the back seat, and our trip home resumed with the added feature of rear hatch ventilation.

We remained sheepish for a time, until the memory of the incident faded. Dad had a new windshield installed, and life went back to normal.

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