silly woman

Such a silly woman.  I just had to change my dress before he drove baby-and-me to the hospital.  As if maternity nurses never saw hemorrhaging or a bloody skirt.  “I’ll be right back, Dear,” I promised, as I stepped off the curb and hurried to the house.  Never said how dizzy I felt.
      
Such a silly man.  Herbert did a little eye-roll, but didn’t argue with a woman going into labor.  When I collapsed onto the street behind our old car, he saw that gray Buick sedan passing by — with the license number he got almost right — and thought “hit-’n'-run.” Over and over, he yelled “Call 911! Call 911!” to everyone, and no one, his tears wetting my face.       
      
Silly police.  Hours of roadblocks and interviews.  On the tv news, neighbors outraged over a ”black driver” who would knock down a full-term, pregnant woman and keep on going.  All the neighbors say I was ”a very nice woman.”    
   
Silly Medical Examiner.  It took him a day to figure it out.  “The cause of death was not consistent with injuries being struck by a motor vehicle,” said Amsterdam Chief Thomas Brownall. I fell backwards at the same time the vehicle was going by.  "Fell backwards, struck her head and died of those injuries.”

Such a silly mother: They did a C-section, but my baby was dead. They examined the gray car and it never hit any body.  When I got to the hospital, my clothes had more rusty splotches.   I can hear my mother wailing in Uganda.  Such a silly woman.            
            

    midnight fire alarm –
    stumbling toward
    the wedding album

["based on a true story": “Amsterdam Woman’s Death Not Caused by Hit and Run,” WNYT.com, Albany, NY, May 27, 2006 .  My first haibun.]

Comments

[Aurora]

I remember this one! It made quite an impression on me the first time I read it, and I read it aloud to quite a few people. I didn't remember that you were the author.

[david giacalone]

Many thanks, Aurora. This has only appeared at f/k/a, back in May 2006, when I was going to start calling that weblog The Haibun Pundit, and try to marry haibun with my commentary on current events. A nice health relapse (or, is that illness relapse) forced me to cut the experiment short after a day or two and I never got back to it. The idea still sort of intrigues me. My hope was that being the Haibun Pundit would cause me a lot less agita than trying to be Prof. Yabut or ethicalEsq.

[Aurora]

I really like f/k/a the way that it is. Why not start a separate haibun blog? It's not as though you'd have to update it daily.

[david giacalone]

I'm already spending too much time online and doing webloggy things. Time is a zero-sum game, and I want to make more time for some direct human-to-human interaction.

[Peggy]

Innovative and really good. Has it had a chance at CHO, etc.?

[david giacalone]

Thank you very much, Peggy. No, I have not submitted this haibun (nor the only other one I have written) to any publication. I thought I might see how it was received here before taking the plunge. (It's also quite a bit longer than I myself like a haibun to be.)