Dear reader,
On February 12 I was heading back to work after lunch; my mind already occupied with the black and white this-and-that of written media, as well as all of the semantics and pedantics that go with it.
I stood stationary at the traffic light, waiting for the little green arrow at the Bethal Street turn-off to flicker; signalling that I’m further away from home than I’d like to be, but bitterly close to having to sit down and pen-down some story about diarrhoea running down the N12 – or something of that nature anyway.
The Bethal Street turn-off is “back at the office” in my mind; it was so close to the office that it became an emblem of work – a marker at which I knew I’d be in front of my desk within five minutes of reaching.
Until I heard the sound of metal on tar.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of white come barrelling towards me.
I braced.
The speed at which it happened was such that for a moment one could have imagined that the car in front of me had been Dorothy and Toto, and that they’d been swept away by a twister to the Land of Oz.
But “tannie Madeleine’” was no Dorothy, and thank the lord she didn’t have a Toto with her that day.
The truck hit her on the passenger-side door, causing the illusion of teleportation. Impacting her vehicle with such force that it shot sideways, coming to a dizzy stop nearly fifty metres from where it had been struck originally.
“I was the car behind “tannie Madeleine.”
The truck had missed me by inches, leaving me with the sound of metal on tar ringing in my ears.
I drove away; feeling that it would be tempting fate to stay any longer.
I kept driving even though I thought for sure the woman, who I would later hear called “tannie Madeleine,” was dead.
I kept driving even though I knew that by the off-chance that someone had already called an ambulance, it would take them ten minutes to get to the scene.
I kept driving even though I’m a journalist, and it is my job to see the nitty-gritty, and report it back to you – dear reader.
I kept driving because it was the only way I could convince myself that that truck was not meant for me.
I kept driving because I was thankful that I could.
I kept driving because I didn’t want to be reminded of my own mortality and the imminent promise of death which we all face.
We’ll all be pushing daisies eventually – whether the truck was meant for us or not.
But I didn’t keep driving. It took me two minutes to compose myself; in those two minutes I had simultaneously made peace with my own death, as well as that of “tannie Madeleine” and the truck driver.
In those two minutes; I realised that the fear I felt having witnessed the accident couldn’t be comparable to what “tannie Madeleine” felt whilst trapped between a jammed car door and the hissing mound which was the truck’s bonnet.
I helped.
Or I tried to.
I’m useless in an emergency situation, and by quite a large degree not empathic enough to be of any value as a first responder – but in that moment, “tannie Madeleine” and I were alive.
She more miraculously than I.
I stood next to the wreckage, her moans of pain sifting through my own patchwork-soul as the paramedics lifted her out of the origami-sculpture which was her vehicle, feeling the sun on my skin, and the breeze turning the sweat to salt on my skin, and I thought; ‘This is it.’
This is all we get.
This strange, unjust, unrighteous (and yet, somehow, fantastic and grand) amalgamation of pain and pleasure.
This is all we have – and we’re in it together.
