The Bang

I was driving on a straight road when the passenger airbag exploded.

There had been no crash that I understood.

First came the sound.

Then dust.

Then the burnt smell.

For a few seconds, I did not know what had happened. The inside of the car looked wrong, and the smell made everything feel more serious than I could explain.

I pulled over.

The passenger airbag was hanging out.

I stared at it.

Why?

That was the only useful question I had.

Until then, airbags had been simple in my mind. You crashed, the airbag opened, and the soft cushion protected you.

The real thing did not look soft.

It had arrived violently.

I walked around the car and tried to find a reason. Maybe I had hit something underneath. Maybe a stone had struck the car. Maybe there was a fault.

I did not know.

That was the worst part.

I still had about fifty kilometers to go.

The car could move.

So I drove.

But the journey changed.

Every sound became suspicious. Every vibration felt new. I listened to the car as if it had become a stranger.

Nothing else happened.

I reached the destination.

Years later, I still do not know exactly why the airbag deployed.

The memory has no solution.

Only a straight road, a sudden bang, the burnt smell, and fifty careful kilometers afterward.