I'm driving back from Las Vegas where I went to Jordan and Ariana's wedding reception. I get to St. George and I stop for some gas and some food, and then head on my way. About half-way between St. George and Cedar City, I cross an over-pass, and suddenly my wheel starts rumbling severely. I pull over to the side of the road, and just as I feared, I have a blown-out tire.
I get my spare tire and jack out from the trunk, and start to jack up the car. The road has a slight decline, and the car rolls forward as it raises off the ground, and rolls off the jack. If only I had a brick or cinder block to put in front of the tire to keep it from rolling. I look around the side of the road for a rock to use. The ground to the side of the road slopes down into a tree-covered gully, but on the hill I see a large flat rock, about 5 inches thick. It's a good bet, so I go pick it up. It's really big and heavy, and it's awkward for me to pick up on the hill. I start carrying the rock to the car, but I slip and stumble backward, falling down on the ground. The rock drops hard on my chest, breaking several ribs and puncturing a lung. I pass out as I'm rolling down the hill into the trees. I die a few hours later.
I don't get back to Provo at all that night. My roommates don't think anything of it, because I hardly ever sleep in my own apartment anyway, and this is the second weekend in a row that I've taken a trip without telling them where I'm going. They don't even know I'm gone.
I don't go to Church the next day, but since I have such a hard time waking up every morning anyway, most everyone is used to me sleeping in, and no one is really that surprised that I'm not there, so they don't think anything of it.
Only a few of my friends even know that I've gone to Vegas, but they know that I could stay a few days just as easily as come back today, so they're not really surprised that they don't see me after a few days. Ronnie goes back to Louisiana and never knows if I come back from Vegas or not. All he knows is that I don't answer my Gmail. Jason moves back to Salt Lake and likewise thinks nothing of the fact that he hasn't seen me after a week. Tyler knew that I was gone, but quickly forgets and is just annoyed that I'm not around for him to watch TV at my place. His girlfriend then gets back in town and he stops coming over, so he never realizes that I haven't come back.
The only one of my friends that knows that I've headed back to Provo is Amy Jo. After she's been back in Provo for a few weeks she calls me when she's bored one day, but when I don't return her calls she just writes me off as a jerk and stops calling.
I don't show up to work the next week. No one at work is really surprised, since they're used to me setting my own schedule, working from home, or just taking breaks whenever I feel like it. It takes until the end of the month for them to call, and then they just want to know my new class schedule. I don't give one to them, but they don't worry about since I don't follow a schedule anyway.
Meanwhile the highway patrol finds my car on the highway. They put a notice on it, and when it remains there for a day or two, they assume it's abandoned and impound it. They never even notice my body down in the gully.
My family calls after a week or two, and I don't answer. They just complain about how crappy of a son/brother that they have, and get annoyed with me for never calling them back. After a few months of not hearing from me, they'll call my grandma and see if she's seen me. No one hears from me, and it's not until I don't come home for Christmas that they suspect that something might be wrong, as opposed to me just being a jerk.
This didn't all happen, of course. I did get a flat tire outside of St. George, but I didn't drop the rock and I was able to get back into town and buy a new tire. All in all it took me about 4 hours to get through St. George on my way back home. It is kind of depressing, though, to realize that if something had happened to me that it would have taken 4 months before anyone even started looking for me. Now I know how Bryant feels.
