I Saw a Dead Person on The Way to Work This Morning

A Vintage Post, retrieved from Scrubbed Innocence

Yeah. I did. I think I did. The HP had just arrived. It was a fresh accident between a Volvo 850 wagon (my dream car) and a Chrysler LeBaron convertible (top down), both early 90s models, both white. Both had spun into the brush on the right shoulder. The Volvo driver was sitting with one leg hanging out the open door, looking heavenward, thanking whomever that he or she once had the keen foresight to purchase a Volvo. The driver of the Chrysler was bent sharply across the passenger door, belly up, head stuck somewhere in the passenger space, legs outside unseen. I could see only the sky-blue dress shirt clothing a male-looking torso with a highly unnatural crook where it bent right in the middle. Anyone bent that way has to be dead, I thought. But then I chastised myself for being such a pessimist. I'm working hard to get away from this. So, surely the person could be not only alive but also well, since he could have possibly been on his way to work as a contortionist for Cirque du Soleil, so he was obviously very flexible and would not have been injured by such a stretch. Or, better yet, the person was not even injured but had survived the wreck unscathed and with enough optimism to get out of the car, close the door behind him, and walk all the way around to the passenger side to do a preventative homeopathic backbend. That was probably it. Yeah. The more I thought about it, there was just no way some poor sucker had met his end while driving to the stupid job he hated driving to every day. No way, man. And besides, what kind of a person would keep a job he hated? A person caught up in irrational fears and avoidant excuses. And there was just no way a person like that would also drive a Chrysler LeBaron convertible, absolutely not. So obviously the man was driving to a job he really loved, and considering the vibrancy of that sky-blue shirt, he probably really was a contortionist for Cirque du Soleil, or at least an Artistic Director or something. Or maybe a costume technician. Which is probably why his own shirt was just a plain button-up, without a tie. I'll bet a tie would get caught in the sewing machine, so the poor guy had to opt out of ties, against his aesthetic constitution, which obviously would have called for classic colors, like white, with bold lines. Never paisleys. But even as a Costume Technician, he could observe the performers working out during rehearsals, which is how he learned stretches like the backbend he was now demonstrating over the passenger side door. God, he loved his job so much, he couldn't wait to get well and get there.

Funny thing. On the way home today, after the office holiday lunch (fun!), a couple of ultrasounds (not work-related), and a holiday party with a bunch of people I haven't seen since high school (glad no one's harboring old grudges!), all of which congealed into a hell of a weird day, I drove north on the 5 to LA. There was traffic the whole way, at midnight. But just before I hit the 10 West, everyone slammed on their brakes to watch an enormous meteorite, hurling itself toward the god-only-knows, with all the enthusiasm of young lady rushing to her computer to crank out a whimsical blog entry as if it would make any god damned difference at all in the goddam goddam world.