All It Takes

Poor Darlene. Late for her job interview, stuck in traffic on the Washington bridge, she had to pee so bad that her toes were curling. She was going to be late, so she picked up her cell phone and scrolled through her recent calls while inching her car forward, trying to gage the distance to the end of the bridge by squinting through the morning fog, wondering if the bridge maintenance office had a ladies room she could use. Hell, even a porta potty if the construction workers were still stationed at the turnoff to Claremont Village. It was while eyeballing her call list that she took her eyes off the road for just the amount of time required for her to miss the car in front slamming on its brakes - CRUNCH! "Oh fuck." Darlene had rear-ended the car in front of her. "Fuck fuck fuck FUCK!" The surprise caused her to lose control of her bladder, warm piss gushed from her vagina, down her stockinged legs, filled her high heels and spilled over to the car floor, soaked the carpet. An amount of fluid so great that it was a puddle that sloshed back and forth with the momentum of her car. The driver in front of her exited his car and cursed at her, arms raised, palms flat to the sky as if begging the Lord for answers. Darlene rolled down her window, trying not to burst into tears. "Sir, I am so sorry-" she started. "What the fuck is wrong with you? Look what you did to my bumper? Were you on your phone??" He glared at the phone gripped in her fist, then observed the flushed-red anguish spreading across her face, zero clue that she'd just wet herself. "Follow me to the next turn off so we can exchange information, ok? Sorry to yell. My car is barely a month old!" "Sure," was all Darlene could muster. Just then, she realized someone had picked up the phone on the other line of her call. She lifted it to her ear, "hello?" She kicked off her heels, tipping them over with her toes to empty the urine from them. Traffic was moving slowly but surely and she could now see the end of the bridge, the Claremont exit coming into sight. "Hello?" a woman said on the other end of the line. "Is everything okay?" "Hi, yes, no, I'm sorry, not really. This is Darlene McGillicutty and I'm afraid I'm running late for my 9am interview?" Her stockinged feet were pressing into the car's piss-saturated carpet, and audible SQUISH making Darlene frown with disgust. "I'm sorry Ms. McGillicutty, maybe there was a miscommunication, but I have you in our calendar for an interview at 9am NEXT WEEK." "Wait, seriously?" Darlene thumbed through her phone apps, pulled up the Calendar. Sure enough, "Interview" wasn't today, but next Tuesday. Just then - CRUNCH - she rear ended the same car, having failed to notice it stopped in front of her again. The driver got out: "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?? I'm calling the police!" and got back into his car. He wasn't moving even though traffic was, stopped dead still in the middle lane on the bridge. Cars honk while pulling around them both, some angrily mouthing obscenities, others flipping the bird. Darlene burst out in tears. The driver of the car was on his phone with the police, furiously dealing with the police dispatch on the other line. Everything seemed to slow down for Darlene then, cars passing by in slow motion, a breeze blowing her hair back from her face. She wiped the tears from her face and back-swipes the mucous pouring out her nose with her arm, leaving a snail trail on her nice interview coat. Everything went quiet - the honks, the engines roaring, the man screaming into his phone - as Darlene turned to the sun rising over the river, the horizon beyond the bridge beckoning. She left her car, engine idling, the driver side door flung wide open, as she sloshed in wet stockings to the edge of the bridge, cars screeching to a halt as she passed in front of them, oblivious how close she was to being hit. "HEY LADY!" The man screamed, assuming she was trying to escape responsibility for the accident. "WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING?!" She rather lithely pulled herself up on the protective pedestrian barrier, took one last breath, then flung herself over the edge. The nearly 20 second fall to her death below was a moment so freeing that for the first time that morning Darlene realized she'd forgotten to put on undewear.