Her Name Is
A Short Story of What Could’ve
Rolling up her window, to shut out the noise of the loud cars passing by, she let out a big sigh of relief from holding her breath. Her body trembled all over. She shivered violently in the middle of the warm July. Beads of sweat covered the brow and forehead. She sat planted with her forehead pressed firmly against the steering wheel thinking of how that could’ve gone. She carefully laid her hands cautiously and procedurally up against the dashboard of her car as if she were still in the middle of the traffic stop.
Tears so hot, so salt-filled, they stung down the side of her cheeks while streaming. These were tears of joy mixed with tears of fear and anger. Each tear with its own emotional marker, they came together to support and reveal how she felt. The anger was for having to have been afraid in the first place. She was afraid that, her, an unarmed black woman, that the unapologetic color of her skin would provoke the fear and suspicion in the law official, the one licensed to carry by law, would somehow be driven by their own fear and enforce their law on her.
Their “law” off the books.
She feared the possibility to not one day be able to meet the man of her dreams to build her dream with. The dream she had of affecting change in the lives of youth. It scared her, the possibility of not being able to hold the small warm body of her soft wrinkled newborn someday. She sat in the front seat terrified of not living out the rest of the life she knew she was destined-ly scheduled to live out.
She had too much promise left.
Tears of joy streamed from a place of where freedom was the broadcast, better this than a live stream of where the situation could’ve gone differently, a lot less peaceful, a lot less like…this. The noise went from a soft sob to a loud wailing of travail. Her hands slapped repeatedly up against the dashboard of her car, dust particles flew into the mix of slob and snot, a result of her crying.
Her stomach began doing it’s best to come out of the knots that it became fearfully entangled in.
A few minutes ago, life flashed like a movie to her, with the movie being her own life.
She felt triggered. Triggered by all the names she remembered as hashtags and headlines run down her timeline. She sat alone in her car but little did she know that that moment she was in would’ve been one that went a lot differently. The world would’ve been triggered and upset by her death, the injustice committed against her but she would’ve been no more. Something in her must’ve felt that, believed that.
Her spirit was crying for her. She was safe. Alive.
Time for her felt as if it stood still. She looked up at the clock on the dash but the hour on the clock didn’t seem like the hour she was in. Something about this felt as if it was almost final but something or someone said, “not yet, too soon”. It was something about this hour, this time. She couldn’t shake the feeling that it was almost her, that it could’ve been her. She remembered all of the live videos. The conversations that surrounded all of those who had gone too soon at the hands of those meant to serve and protect. She remembered the outrage she felt for them. The justice she wanted them to have, the times she spoke up at the press of a button on her phone hoping someone would hear how angry and sad she was for them. She couldn’t help but feel as if she were almost in the same position. Almost memorialized by the internet, friends, and family. “What would they say about me?”, she thought.
She looked up in the rearview mirror, the state trooper car was gone. She couldn’t ignore herself in the reflection of the mirror, her eyes were bloodshot red, face wet from the storm of tears. Grabbing tissue out of her glovebox she blows and wipes away all of the emotional storm’s wetness. Peering over into the front passenger’s seat, she sat but felt a strong wind coming from there. It was still but it moved. All of the windows were up and the air conditioner was off. It was a presence, she could feel it. Looking back at the dashboard clock again, the time was still exactly the same of where it was from when she just looked at it and she knew that minutes had gone by.
Shaking it all out of her head she turns the key in the ignition turning on the car. The radio blares Swagg Surfing by Jamboree. She almost let out an automatic bounce but this didn’t feel like the time. She turned the radio down and turned on her left signal to exit the shoulder of the road. Her phone vibrated in the cup holder on the side of her seat, it was her mom. Focusing on the road in front of her, she looked straight ahead and didn’t give answering a second thought. She would call her back as soon as she was parked and at her destination.
Later that night she layed her head on the pillow, grieving what she couldn’t see, what could’ve been, but her heart was thankful for what was. She softly whispered the words, “thank you” as if someone were listening, but she was sure someone was. Her well of tears made their streams down to the side of her face to her ears. Staring at the ceiling, a series of images, movie-like, played across her mind, it was a vision.
She could feel the rage of the people raising like a flame everywhere, sadness and grief both gripped her as she watched the next scenes that played across her mind. It was a protest and people were marching around with picket signs that read say her name with her face blown up in black and white on some of the signs. The protest was about her, the anger was about her, the sadness was about her. At that moment, in her bed, she knew what she just saw, what could’ve been. Her death. The feeling she got in her gut and couldn’t help shake it earlier that day in the car. What she saw a result of what could’ve happened earlier that day. She sobbed loudly, pillow tear-soaked. Spared she was. Breathing. Alive. Still here.
A new day. A new dawn. She checked her makeup in the rearview mirror smiling. She had it. The confidence. She had it. Nothing out of place, from head to toe, she had it. The job, she had it. A new start, she had it. Her breath, she had it. She opened her car door, stepping into what was a new transitional moment in her life. As she entered the building for her first day on the new job, she was greeted by the staff who considered her to be family already. They spoke her name with the warmest of welcomes because in that moment it just felt right to do so. “Everybody, let’s give a big warm welcome to Sandra Bland as she joins our family.”
Smiling, she was joyed by the way they said her name, joyed at the moment that was as she thought about what could’ve been.
She went on to live the life where her name held the weight of being a change agent. She lived to change the world and her name would reverberate through generations.
#sayhername
For years, I’ve spent time thinking about Sandra Bland and how her life ended so prematurely, stolen really. Never knew her but she was a generational peer, a sister in the race. I think about her life and what could’ve been. For me, her death triggered me, it hit something that angered me. This short story was inspired by the ideas of “what-if” and “could’ve”. She would’ve been 33 years old this year.
