They’re holding a memorial service for the man who jumped. Right on the spot where he died. What were his final thoughts during those last moments? Was he scared? Did he tremble? Or was he simply so backed in a corner he had nothing left to do but leap? Did he keep his eyes open to see the ground as it rushed up before him; his despair at its worst? Or did he shut his eyes tight in an effort to keep the hope in his head alive? Did his heart pound from fright or thrill, or was he calm knowing whatever pain he was in would soon be over? No matter how I try, I can’t put myself in his shoes. To be that jumper. Yet, I imagine I could have held his hand. I would not have been there to talk him down from the windy ledge. I could have held on to that hope, let it take me into flight. In the end, to be two crumpled mistakes, lying cold on the pavement.
Earlier in the week we lost a man to the elements. Right behind the bike path where I used to run. Dead to the elements. A homeless someone. It startled me, this report, because we hadn’t gotten a single snowflake yet. Was the frost really that killing? It seemed to be. It must have been. He was 42 years old and homeless and now dead. How did he die? Did he shiver to the point of exhaustion or slumber his existence away, drunk to the elements, those killing elements? Was there hopelessness to this homelessness?
Last night I drove past the unrecognizable remains of what used to be a person. Blood and gore smeared for yards. Clumps of something unimaginable, shiny red on the black pavement, our headlights glinting off the wetness of it all. At first I thought it was something spandex, plastic. Clumpy, red and wet. PoliceBlue lights flashed on the messy roadway as uniformed officers stepped from their vehicles, leaving doors flung wide open. Sobriety tests? I wondered. I had been hearing about them. A few more yards and I was passing a dog sized lump in the middle of the other lane. It looked exactly like roadkill. Roadkill wearing shreds of clothes, exposing bone, yet unrecognizable as anything definite. No head. No arms or legs. Not male or female. Just a mangled mess. I stared in shock asking myself “Is this, was this, a human being?” Like nothing I had ever seen before and never want to see again. I drove the rest of the way to kisa in shock. Later, him being the newshound that he is, kisa sent me a video of the accident. A pedestrian tried to cross our paths and was struck 3, maybe 4 times. The damage done rendered this person as neither male nor female. Unrecognizable, irreclaimable. Who were you? What were you doing? Were you drunk? Disorientated? Just plain crazy? Where were you going and did you bet on Hell to get there?
Three deaths in less than a week. They haunt me still.
~*LunaSea*~ 