Nothing matters because my friend died.
But if it did, I would tell you that I feel like nothing.
I feel like I lost something very important and I will never get it back.
I dreamt last night I was invisible, and I followed it around, and I tried to destroy it, but even in my dreams, I could only affect it as a dream. I couldn’t fathom being real.
But, that is wrong, for I am real, but it is not. But none the less it destroys me. And I wish I’d never known it.
One hundred and twenty seconds. What can that buy you?
When I stepped outside I saw the cab speeding down the street towards the yellow light. He was blaring his horn to alert those of his audaciousness. The light was yellow when he was almost a block away, yet because he was going so fast it was still yellow when he entered the intersection and turned red before he exited it.
That’s how it happened. I knew it all at once, I will never be able to prove this to you, but I know that it’s true. The truck was speeding towards the yellow light, but was still far enough away that Kirk looking down the street and realizing it was about to go green assumed that anyone approaching now would stop, but they did not, and Kirk realized this too late as he ran into the back of the pick-up truck.
They say life is all about timing, and death is certainly more so.
Two minutes.
My guess is that is the most you will wait if you miss the end of a yellow light and have to wait the whole cycle of a four way stop.
What terrifies me, what shakes me to my bone, is how many times I have decided that two minutes were more important to me, and my incorrigible tardiness, than whatever caution they may afford. When I drive now it’s in a daze watching all of the bikers and pedestrians and all the chances they take, and then I remember her shaking, wide eyed, and desperately looking to us for some sort of comfort, a solace that doesn’t exist. His girlfriend keeps waiting to comprehend what has happened, what it means, and I held her wishing that I had one word of wisdom that would let her know it was going to be all right. Anyone who has lost the one they Loved knows that I didn’t.
“Who’s fault was it?” This was the first question everyone asked me about the accident. I still don’t really understand why it matters. I have broken traffic laws and I didn’t deserve to die, and I didn’t want to kill anyone. Light runners are not murderers, nor do they deserve to die. He wasn’t wearing a helmet either. Does that mean he forfeited his life? He ran into a truck going God knows how fast, my senses tell me the helmet wouldn’t have mattered. That’s what I tried to convince his girlfriend, because she is analyzing every moment, every fact, and trying to figure out where she could have made a difference, where she could have pleaded, coerced, or begged, for him to wear a helmet, stay with her an extra minute, or maybe just distracted him with a phone call, the difference of minutes, seconds, that could have saved his life.
Two minutes.
She knows what it can buy, and now, so do I.
And I hope you do too.
