Mr. Hill's Death
By S.L. Gilbow, first published in The Dark
A high school English teacher becomes obsessed with a clip of a car accident, in which a yellow convertible—identical to his own—swerves off the road and hits a tree at top speed. Then he sees the video’s upload date: one month in the future.
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11th grade English teacher, Mr. Hill, has been working at Meritville High School for eight years, but he hasn’t seen any career advancement within the school.
Nearing the end of the fall semester, Mr. Hill’s students are giving their extra credit presentations on literary tones. Emily has chosen “tragic”: she shares the verbatim dictionary definition, a passage from Macbeth, a diorama of a recent horror film decapitation scene, and, finally, a short video of a yellow convertible swerving off a road. Mr. Hill’s students note that the car looks a lot like his.
While grading Emily’s presentation on his computer, Mr. Hill wonders if she truly understands the concept of tragedy, and if he himself would qualify as a tragic hero. Something flashes across Mr. Hill’s computer, and he sees that the clip of the car accident has been downloaded to his desktop. Mr. Hill starts watching the video obsessively, trying to see if the car is indeed his, but he cannot make out the license plate. During winter break, Mr. Hill trades in his yellow convertible for a black sedan and stops thinking about the video of the car wreck.
When school resumes in the new year, Emily reveals that her dad bought the yellow convertible for her. Alarmed, Mr. Hill rewatches the video of the car accident, but is unable to get a glimpse of the driver. He tries deleting the clip from his computer, but it reappears. He changes the name of the video from “Tragic Car Wreck” to “Fuzzy Kittens,” but after a few seconds, the name reverts back. He then sees the video’s creation date: February 2nd of the current year—one month from now.
Mr. Hill drives to Emily’s house and convinces her father to sell the yellow convertible back to him. Emily is upset, and Mr. Hill’s students make fun of him in class about the situation. A few weeks later, as Mr. Hill drives home, he sees a car in his rearview mirror, ostensibly with a dash cam. He knows he should slow down, but he accelerates, swerving off the road and into a tree.
The video of the car accident is uploaded to YouTube, and most of Mr. Hill’s students come to his funeral.
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