Short Stories WR Woodbury

    The cement truck hit the taxi sideways.  The worst damage was to the back door right where Rachel was sitting.  The screech of protesting tires, the impact thud, and the groan of bending metal as the taxi was shoved across the intersection, was followed by a hush, only broken by the whisper of slurry as the drum of the cement mixer rotated on its axis.  As the dust settled, a chatter of excited voices approached the wreck.  She heard the wail of an ambulance in the distance.  “Somebody must have been hurt,” she thought.  The cab hadn’t rolled over so she was still sitting upright, but when she tried to move, she couldn’t.  Her seatbelt was so tight she could hardly breathe, and one leg was held fast by a corner of the front seat that had come off its rail and been shoved into her lower leg. When she twisted her foot to get it free, a shock of deep pain shot from her leg to her heart, and for the first time, she cried out.  Eventually the firemen cut her seatbelt and freed her tremb

There was no wind that sunny blue morning as I walked across the bridge toward the city. The waterway was mirror calm and reflected puffy white clouds that connected the sky to the upper harbour.  On one shore a stack of flattened cars waited to be shipped out by barge, and on the other, tugboats in drydock stood shrouded in ghostly plastic with masts that could be steeples.  When I peered over the railing at the green water below, I could make out the shadow of the bridge but I was so high up I could barely see myself standing on it.  There were flashes of moving light under the surface and for a moment I thought it could be the white marks on a killer whale but we were too far into fresh water for the seals they preyed on. Every time these underwater shafts of light appeared, the bridge shook and when I turned round, I realized the lights were reflections from the high windows of double decker buses that passed over the bridge.  The focused rays pierced the green water, turned yell