Twice a Day (A Short Story by Ashlyn Hayes)

Esther passed the spot where she was to die at least twice a day.

Sometimes, that number increased, such as when she realized she had left something in the parking garage across the street from her workplace. At others, it decreased, such as when it was raining, or her heels were killing her, or some other atrocity occurred that forced her to take the Metro bus the rest of the way to her job.

However, despite the thousands of times Esther passed the spot, a narrow strip of concrete that had been used for jaywalking since the road had been created, she only ever stopped one time. Caught up in a feeling of foreboding that she could not explain, she looked up and down Sanders Main, a small road where the top speed was thirty. Not a car was around, so Esther shook off the feeling as only her imagination and continued on.

She worked at a PR firm, but unfortunately she held no lofty titles, merely that of an underpaid technological assistant. For years, Esther had attempted to climb the ranks of bureaucracy. Yet, when rejection slip after rejection slip was mailed to her office, combined with tax forms and job placement paperwork, she had given up trying to progress higher. Determined to make the most of her position, Esther remained quietly on the outskirts of day to day corporate life.

Although it sometimes felt like it, Esther was not alone in the world.

Jonah had been courteous and kind in the brief time that they had dated, straddling the line between chivalry and female independence expertly. Esther had, like in books, fallen for Jonah slowly, than all once.

Now, she looked back on the time before meeting her husband with a feeling of astonishment, for she had no idea how she had lived before Jonah. He had been a breath of fresh air, and she had been drowning.

He liked to walk her to work, and today, February 11th, was no exception.

Playfully taking his hand and swinging it back and forth, Esther beamed, giving no reason for her apparent happiness other than his presence at her side.

"What's got you so happy this morning?" Jonah asked, squeezing her hand tightly in return. Esther did not answer at first, for they were having a mock war of who had the hardest grip.

Jonah won, like always.

Relaxing her hand but maintaining an steady hold of him, Esther responded with a peck on the side of his stubble. "I want to tell you something," she whispered in his ear. "Come home on time tonight."

"Oooh, is it about the spaghetti I left on the stove last week?" Jonah joked. "I promise that it was an accident, and it will only happen a couple more times."

Esther swatted his arm and walked on, leaning her head on his shoulder every now and then.

They neared Esther's job, and Jonah kissed her again before turning to go back to the car. Distracted by the news she carried, and dinner preparations, Esther did not look both ways before crossing the normally empty street, until she heard a loud honk rapidly bearing down on her.

Only a moment after she registered the news, a large force hit her, sending her collapsing to the ground.

Somehow, she noticed the speeding vehicle stop, having slammed on the brakes. The driver got out of the front seat, and through a daze of pain, Esther looked up to meet his eyes.

However, he was not looking at her.

He was looking at the bloodied remains of someone....the person who had shoved Esther out of the way.

Even before Esther knew who was there, thrown back and pulverized beneath the wheels, she was calling out Jonah's name, running toward the mess only to be held back.

However, she caught sight of a blankly staring eye, tilted towards the sky, and she threw up, the pain filling her with heart-wrenching and numbing grief.

It seemed like an eternity passed before the newspaper arrived, closely followed by the police. Esther was wrapped in a blanket and pulled into an ambulance. Yet, even the sirens could not drown out the noise of her heart, beating so loudly that she could hear nothing else.

It did not take long for her to convince herself that it was not Jonah under the car wheels. It was someone else, a stranger, someone who had saved her life.

Someone else had taken her place where Esther was to die. She would rather have died than Jonah.

Only then, cradling her unborn child to herself, did she begin to sob, the tears forming an ocean on the sterile seats of the ambulance.