The Unexpected

Here is scenario for your next book:

It's New Year's Eve. A lovely young widow dressed up for her New Year's Eve party. She's been invited by her friends, a nice couple who loves her dearly, to a BYOB and an appetizer or dessert gathering in the lounge of their building. She lives not too far, and the fifteen minutes drive along the one-lane busy road is a familiar path she uses every day.

Ready in a black silk skirt, sequin shirts, and matching high-heel sandals, she grabs a black shawl and a small evening purse. On second thought, she stuffs the small purse and shawl into a larger bag containing her keys, wallets, ids,..

After ten minutes, the traffic slows, almost bumper to bumper, then jerks and moves, and slows and moves. She'll be  late but doesn't worry too much about it. Finally, the cars ahead speed, so to speak, to twenty-five miles speed. Suddenly the car in  front of her stops. Marie slams on the break too. The car behind her bumps against her SUV and sends her barrelling into the front one.
It all happens so fast. The safety bags open, hit her face, and suffocate her. She can't breathe, she can't turn her head, she can't move. Oh God, am I going to die, she prays as the world turns black around her.

"Ma'am, can you hear me?" She opens an eye. Someone knocks on her side window. She can't move, and gasps for air, but one balloon presses hard against her open mouth, and the other against her stomach.

"Help is coming." Someone opens the passenger door and crawls next to her to undo her seat belt, and then crashes the safety balloon. A white vapor wafts to her mouth. She coughs and groans. "Help me, help me, please."

A policeman pulls the key stuck in the starter. Another opens the driver door. "Ma'am, can you go out?"

She can't feel her legs, and keeps coughing. A paramedics holds her head, immobilizes it with a neck brace, and lays her on her back. "It's okay, we'll get you out." Three men slide her out of the car and onto a stretcher that they move to an ambulance.

"What's you name?"
"Marie."
"Last name, date of birth, social security?"
Her eyes close, she tries to remember, but can't.
"Do you have a purse?"
"Yes."
"Okay, we'll find it. Do you have shoes?"
"Shoes?" She can't remember.
At ER, they try to move her, she screams in pain. A nurse gives her an injection. "It's morphine. You'll sleep and be fine while we take x-rays."

Meanwhile at the party her friend calls her on her cell phone and at home every half an hour. "Something must have happened to Marie."

The next morning a nurse explains: "You have three broken ribs, a broken vertebra, and a broken scapula. Maybe more. A doctor should come to see you. Be patient, it's the New Year. Happy New Year, Marie." The nurse brings her the purse and gives her the cell phone with a dozen anxious messages.

She calls her friend and apologises for missing the party.
 "I'm coming right away," says her friend.

This is a true story that happened last night. Marie was coming to a party in my building.