I was the fastest man on earth.
I was invincible in my F1 car,
and when I was in my zone, I used to fly.
Driving came naturally to me.
When I was four, my dad modified
my pedal kart and I started karting.
Seeing my talent, he enrolled me in a club,
where I was the youngest on the grid.
Soon I started winning races
and took championships while I was still a boy.
I climbed the ladder, one series at a time,
and became an F1 driver at a twenty.
F1 felt like home, and I was good at it.
I knew when to pit, when to change tyres,
how to carve through corners
with ease and a touch of élan.
I mastered racing in heat and rain,
reading the track like a living thing.
I drove for Ferrari,
and won several world titles.
There were other trophies, records, numbers,
and I was counted among the greats.
At forty I retired,
saying goodbye to the cars and tracks.
At twenty-four, I met a girl
and fell in love.
We built a beautiful married life,
a son, a daughter, a shared world.
After marriage she became my shadow on the road,
my constant companion in the paddock,
travelling with me to races
on circuits around the world.
I never loved the limelight,
but in racing there is no hiding.
When I retired, I moved to a quiet house
in a remote Swiss village.
There I had my own karting track,
a horse ranch, open sky.
I owned several cars,
and a few of the F1 machines that made my name.
We lived a quiet life,
happy to be far from city noise.
One day I drove out for groceries;
a truck slammed into my car.
My head struck hard.
I suffered a traumatic brain injury
and slipped into a coma.
When I woke, I was in a hospital bed, paralyzed.
They said I was unconscious,
but I was there inside, awake.
I could hear, see, and feel everything,
but I could not move, not even a finger.
The doctors told my family
they had done all they could.
They said it was time to take me home,
to wait, to hope, to endure.
Four nurses watched me day and night.
My wife and children came each day
to sit beside my bed and talk,
their voices threading through the silence.
I understood every word
but could not give them any sign.
The doctors told my family
to surround me with familiar sounds and scents.
They played the noises of engines and crowds,
the songs we loved, the laughter of my children,
hoping these small storms of memory
would stir my sleeping brain.
Every night my wife kisses me goodnight
after talking to me for hours.
I feel the warmth of her body on my chest,
her lips on mine, her tears on my skin.
Sometimes she breaks down,
sobbing until her shoulders shake.
In those moments I am burning inside,
wanting to hold her, to make her believe.
I want to tell her,
“Honey, don’t cry. I am here. I can hear you.”
But my arms are stone,
my tongue a weight I cannot lift.
I want to hug and kiss my children,
share a meal at our table,
ride my favourite horse again,
swim in the pool with my family.
Sometimes I wonder at the cruel irony:
I drove at 340 mph on the world’s most dangerous tracks,
and survived without a scratch.
Only to be broken at 40 mph, on a quiet village road.
I lie here, waiting for a miracle.
I want to rise from this bed,
put one foot, then another on the floor,
and walk back into an ordinary life.
