It was a bad accident, with the driver dying and his injured passenger ending up in hospital.
The following day, a nurse woke him to say he would be having a visit from the police. Shortly after, a policeman arrived at his bedside. He explained that he needed to gather more about the accident; details that he couldn’t get from the passenger the night before. He told him that he would eventually need to make a written statement. The patient explained that he had known the driver for many years. He said he knew how belligerent his friend could be on occasion. He said the trouble had started in the night club. Apparently he had met this woman who was telling his friend that she was a psychic and how she wanted to warn him about his future. The man in the bed explained that he had come into the conversation late and at that point his mate was giving the woman a hard time and ridiculing her.
This woman was saying that he would die as a result of coming face to face with himself. Of course, he just laughed at her, saying that her prediction made no sense. He asked her to explain, but she wouldn’t elaborate. She said that this could happen soon, depending on how well he could control his physical reactions. It was at this point he had threatened to have the manager throw her out. He was truly drunk at this stage. Anyway, the woman just laughed at him, telling him what a fool he was.
“That’s when I intervened,” the man in the bed explained. “I managed to get him out of there and into the carpark. We found the car and he was swaying around as he stood taking in fresh air for a while. He said it was clearing his head and he’d be OK to drive. I wasn’t happy about that, but he started to get angry with me, so I shut up.”
The policeman looked up from his notes. “Why do you suppose that he insisted on driving when he was obviously so drunk?”
The patient was getting tired, but made an effort to think about the question. “OK,” he said, “to be honest, knowing him, I think he just wanted to prove the woman wrong.”
The policeman sat reading through his notes for several long moments before saying, “Let me just clarify a couple of things, sir.”
The man in the bed settled back and made himself more comfortable, he thought the questioning was about to end and was looking forward to going back to sleep.
“Sure,” he whispered.
“You say that this woman he met in the bar said, let me see, yes here we are, she said that her prediction about his death could happen soon, depending on how well he could control his physical reactions, is that right?
“Yes. Right.”
“And you also said she told him that he would die as a result of coming face to face with himself. Is that right?”
Very sleepy now, the other said, “That’s correct.”
The policeman sat shaking his head for a while before saying, “I’ve been told that because he wasn’t wearing a seat belt when you hit the tree, he was thrown up out of his seat and the impact to his face when it hit the rear vision mirror caused sufficient fracturing of the skull that it resulted in his instant death.”
The man in the bed was almost asleep now. He mumbled, “She was right then,” and began to snore.