When I was hit by a fast-moving car, and escaped without any serious injury, barely even a bruise, it was described by onlookers as a miracle. I accept that I was exceptionally lucky, but surely not a miracle in the biblical sense.
Had the accident occurred anywhere else it might have been forgotten in days. A footnote on page seven of a local paper. But on that day, I was in Abbey Road, in London, at the location made famous by The Beatles album cover, the one that shows them on a zebra crossing. There are often tourists there, re-enacting the scene and taking photographs. That is why there were three high resolution videos, and numerous eyewitnesses to the incident.
Maybe, if I hadn’t been dressed completely in white, it wouldn’t have looked so dramatic. In my defence, it was the middle of summer, I was twenty-two, on my way to an interview with a possible new employer. Maybe, if the car hadn’t been red, if the number plate hadn’t been 58TAN, if the car had stopped and the driver identify himself, the whole thing wouldn’t have gone viral.
Being hit by a vehicle doing 66.6mph (a figure later estimated by some over-enthusiastic internet junkie), somersaulting over the roof, landing on my feet, in high heels, completely unscathed, was admittedly remarkable. But I still convinced it was not a miracle.
In hindsight, I should probably have declined the press interviews, and definitely not accepted a guest appearance on breakfast television. In the following days I became embroiled in a whirlwind of attention that was quite flattering. And I admit, I was intoxicated by the experience. When I denied any kind of divine intervention was involved, it only hardened those online fanatics who were already bestowing me with some sort of spiritual connection.
The television studio was commendably comprehensive in its analysis. Expert opinion, from a film director, suggested that a trained stunt person could stage a similar event, but admitted it would be risky. A computer expert opined that deep-fake AI could have been used to produce the footage and would be virtually undetectable. Even my old physical education teacher was quoted as saying that I had shown exceptional promise as a gymnast – a statement which didn’t tally with my own recollections of those chilly afternoons in the school gymnasium.
The repercussions emanating from the widespread viewing of those three videos were life changing. The white dress, purchased from a very familiar high street store, sold out in days. Proposals of marriage arrived by mail, email, and even, once, on a banner trailed behind a noisy light aircraft. Flowers appeared on my doorstep, with notes attached professing love or begging for a cure for sick relatives. People seemed to be under the illusion that a touch from my fingers might have miraculous restorative powers.
I moved back into my mother’s cottage, deep in the Dorset countryside. But I couldn’t escape my followers. To be clear, I don’t mean followers on social media. There were an increasing number of people, of all ages, dressed mostly in white, sitting peacefully in my mother’s front garden. Rather disturbingly, a few quietly accompanied me whenever I walked to the village store, but usually kept a few paces behind me.
I hoped it would all dissipate once the media lost interest. But one reporter informed me it was a ‘slow summer’ for news, and mine was a great human-interest story.
There were positives I suppose. I felt obliged to resign from my job at a financial management company, but I had been prevaricating over that decision for months. I only needed a small push. Clothes parcels arrived daily. I don’t mean charity donations, these clothes were from fashion houses, well known labels, they presumably hoped to boost their sales from me being seen in examples of their designs. It made sense when it was jeans, shoes, dresses, blouses, jewellery, watches and even socks. But how someone would know I was wearing a particular brand of underwear was a mystery to me and, I hope, to everyone else.
Events took on a more sinister nature when the driver of the red car was finally identified. To begin with, the police gave him round-the- clock protection. But mobs gathered outside his house, baying for the blood of the new Herod. The police were forced to take him into protective custody.
The crowds outside my mother’s house continued to grow. Banners appeared proclaiming me as the new messiah, the second coming. The more salacious press referred to those gathering in white as disciples of the church of Janice. They pointed out that even my name meant ‘a gift from God’.
I hadn’t cared much that I didn’t have a father when I was growing up. My mother had told me that he was seventeen, she was sixteen, and that they knew that they were not meant to be together, forever. I had been cherished as a child, with a doting mother and kind, humorous grandparents. I had wanted for nothing. When my mother first read about the speculation that I was the product of a virgin birth, she almost choked on her chardonnay.
“If only they knew,” she mused quietly.
I didn’t enquire further. But her early experience had informed my own life, and I not overly keen to repeat her mistake. Hopefully there was no way the media would unearth that particular fact.
My followers were still outside the house three months later, even though the press coverage had moved to the inside pages of the papers. I had hoped autumn, and cooler weather, would discourage those hoards keeping vigil on our front lawn. But white coats, white woolly hats, even white tents, soon became a feature of our life.
My mother was on first name terms with many of the regular campers outside our house. She had even given them permission to use the lawn in the back garden to allow them more space. In return her flower beds had never looked so neat and weed-free. A large caravan had been donated anonymously. It was parked in our drive for the convenience of my followers.
Donations appeared regularly in my bank account. I have no idea how they got my details, certainly not from me. Offerings of food were left at my mother’s front door. Far too much for us, she distributed them to my followers. Another error. There were never five thousand people there, barely a hundred on the busiest days. But a journalist never lets facts get in the way of a good story.
There is a school of thought that believes if you are continuously told you are worthless, you will either rebel, and prove you have value, or you will come to believe the lie. The same must be true if you are daily bombarded with statements that you are the representative, maybe even the daughter, of a God.
That first winter after my miracle was unusually mild. There was no snow or frost, the temperature never dropped below freezing, and there were always flowers in bloom, somewhere in my mother’s garden. Maybe there were flowers during every winter if you looked carefully enough. But it did add to the illusion.
Spring came early. My followers, outside the house, grew in number from the hardy cohort who had weathered the winter months. The media attention increased once more. The garden of my mother’s house attracted unwarranted attention. Her rose bushes bloomed earlier than normal, house martins nested in the eaves for the first time, a wren, a family of tits, and a blackbird, all chose her small, crowded garden in which to make their nests and rear their young.
I had grown accustomed to attention whenever I left the house. Without a job, without the necessity to earn a living, I spent many days taking long, lazy walks. There was a large lake only a short stroll away, and I spent many hours sitting on a bench, looking out over the calming water. It was a place where my followers would remain respectively behind me, not wishing to interrupt my view. There, I could pretend I was alone.
Among the many clothes I was sent, white was a predominant theme. I suppose I wore that long, white lace dress more than any other outfit. It was beautiful, and it made me feel beautiful too, serene, and peaceful.
One afternoon, in something of a trance-like state, I walked to the very edge of the lake. It was never my belief that I could walk on water and, as the cold water wrapped itself around my ankles, and mud oozed between my toes, my inner belief was confirmed.
I walked home with a lightness of spirit and a sense of relief unknown to me for the previous nine months. It must have been that sense of freedom that caused me to step into the road without checking for approaching vehicles.
They say that lightning never strikes the same place twice, but of course it does. Miracles, however, do not come in pairs. My recovery was a lengthy process. Two broken legs, a fractured pelvis, and several badly damaged ribs, proved I was not invincible, not blessed with godlike qualities.
The doctors said I was unlucky to have sustained such severe injuries from a low-speed collision. To the media I became a humorous anecdote. The would-be messiah who had been taken down by an elderly woman on a mobility scooter. Fortunately, it was not caught on camera, but there were many witnesses, most of them close behind me, most dressed in white.
The driver of the scooter, a friend of my mother, visited me in hospital to apologise. I assured her that she had, in a rather painful way, performed for me a huge favour. By the time I was discharged, my disciples had dissipated, and my mother had given all my white clothes to charity.
I have a new job, and a new boyfriend, who professes that I am still a goddess to him, but not in a metaphysical sense. And sometimes I think back to those months I was worshipped by spellbound acolytes, but I have no real wish to relive that experience. I now take greater care when crossing a road and rarely wear anything white, but I do still have one long, white lace, dress secreted in the back of my wardrobe, only worn in the privacy of my own home. A reminder of when I was, for a time, worshipped.