Two lights that shouldn’t have been there. Twin white beacons pointing skywards like some anachronistic illumination from an anti-aircraft battery; only this was not wartime. This was winter-time on an isolated B road in the middle of the Scottish Highlands. To be more precise, this was slightly off a B road, forty yards down a gulley where the car had come to rest against a tree. The windows had all shattered on its violent drunken roll, and the battering had resulted in an angry distortion of the car’s original shape. The doors had buckled and hot belching steam burst from the engine compartment.
The nearby road was deserted in the blackness of night. No possibility that anybody would know what had happened, unless somebody had noticed the mysterious lights and went to investigate. The problem was that nobody was around, nor was anybody likely to be now that the snow had started to fall. There were no houses in the area, with only a few distant farms possibly too far away for their owners to register that anything was untoward. .
The car now silent lay upon its side, the twisted metal hanging in the balance, supported only by the tree, the trunk of which began to creak and bend under duress. A deafening crack of wood and the car jolted as it lost its hold and slowly began to roll downwards once again. The twin lights extinguished in a tinkling smashing of glass, and the now invisible hulk of metal juddering down the hill.
In the absence of the twin lights, the car disappeared in the night as if it had never been there at all. Only the broken stone wall at the side of that lonely road gave any indication as to the whereabouts of the mangled wreckage. Even the screeching skid marks were by now covered by a thin layer of freshly fallen snow. As the howling winter wind tore through the trees, the snow endeavoured to cling to the bare branches and the temperature dropped to below freezing point.
Just a few miles away in the next village, people were already celebrating Christmas; trudging homeward after the Carol Service in the local Church. The Festive scene illuminated by a plethora of neon Santas and sleighs, reindeer and elves.
One car load of Christmas presents lying at the bottom of a gulley in the desolate countryside. Christmas presents, forever damaged and broken.
One young life damaged, broken and hanging in the balance.
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