theneener

Dead.

By neener | October 13, 2007

I was driving home from a friend’s apartment tonight, heading northbound on US-75. Not an ideal time to travel, past midnight on a Friday night on a highway where many accidents occur. I was trying to decide if I wanted to take a toll road home but had just missed my chance to take the cheap way home anyway. As soon as I cursed my indecisiveness, I looked up ahead and noticed a strange traffic jam.

Like I mentioned, there are always accidents on this highway and seemingly moreso during the weekend nights. But as I got closer to the beginning of the jam, I noticed a lot of cars parked on the highway shoulders with their emergency lights on. There was no wreckage. But there were people standing in the middle of US-75.

There were no cops yet, so whatever happened just occurred. A man raised his arms as to signal that we needed to pick any lane, just not the lane they were standing in. I very slowly chose the right lane as the cars around me were full of confusion as well. Naturally, rubbernecking occurred and the traffic was going so slow I decided that I would turn my head to see what was going on just a few feet away from me.

Behind the group of people was a man, laying on the ground. He was on his back, arms sprawled straight out, blood on his face and balding head. His plaid shirt was unbuttoned and I could see his white undershirt. Just white. He was wearing some dark-colored jeans and his boots stuck straight up. There was friction in my soul and my body tensed up. Although I had never seen death before, I knew this man was dead.

I drove on, slowly and carefully as every car seemed to soak it in. It wasn’t until a mile out when my brain put two and two together. There was no wreckage. But the accident was at the intersection of US-75 and I-635, the “High Five,” with five towering overpasses that reach twelve stories high.

He had jumped.

I thought about the odds of me crossing paths with this dead man and why I had those few seconds to gawk at his unmoving body. And it’s strange, I found myself going through a similar process Anne posted last month on flowerdust.net. Why did he jump? What made life so unbearable that he could find no way out? Did he pick out those clothes knowing he would die in them? Did no one know him, did no one think this would happen? Could it have been prevented?

The man looked similar to a coworker of mine so I started to dig more. Do I know someone who might do this? How have I treated him or her? Does my mouth overflow with words of love and hope, or selfishness and darkness?

It was a dark drive home and now I have to try and sleep with this man in my thoughts. As much as I want to completely forget him, I hope I don’t.

Tags: death, life, love, suicide

Daily, Seeking Truth

3 Comments

By ann, October 13, 2007 @ 9:52 am

I had a similar incident happen in Brazil. I was in Sao Paulo (the humongous city) with some friends, and we were some of the first upon an accident where a woman who’d been trying to cross the highway was hit by a car and killed. It did prompt so many questions– who was she? Where was she going? When will someone notice that she isn’t where she’s supposed to be? Did she have family? It’s a very sobering thing to think back on, even now.
By neener, October 13, 2007 @ 9:57 pm

Sobering is the best word to describe it, for sure.