It was one of those times that shock would be a gift-a present. A time that slowed to enunciate its meaning. A moment that is more than a moment, yet thankfully, is still contained in a wincing short period of time, shorter than it takes to tell a tale, shorter than a breath taken away, one of many-only a moment in time, by definition of duration, three seconds.
Inside the adrenaline 'present', you are made inherently aware of the nowness and the predictable future simultaneously, but like running in a dream, you are unable to escape the moment you are in. We are all stuck together here, running for our lives and gaining no distance.
You must have seen the heavenly shafts of light beaming through trees, the golden glow, the dancing white light. You have witnessed the mist beading and rising from wet wood as the morning dew becomes exposed to the steamy sun and transcends into steam, thick and nearly choking you have sometime seen dust in a dance swirling in its dirty misery...I have sensed the spirit stirred from nothing but new air, like you.
As individual bodies, we were still falling together around the man whose body lay twisted and flat, lifeless in the road. See, stained glass, all in fragments, shuffled photos, squares with light and dark edges, no faces, just the red wooded, cold-blooded earth now stained with oil, an oozing puddle of inky blood on asphalt, a pile of metal pieces sneezed, plastic melted, knobs twisted, and frozen bodies, gravestones stood around the body alive and marking the spot.
Memorable moments make themselves known when they arrive. They announce themselves by silencing all else, by walking heavy and slow across our timeline, across our chest. Death is so natural, as natural as being born. We are biodegradable, most of us. We should not be baffled or afraid, there will be nothing we can do to reverse the course, to turn the clock back, to wait a moment.
This is where we are, on a two-lane narrow and snaky mountain road. Natural springs occasionally burst out of the cloddish mountain side whereby a fallen tree protrudes as if a giant archer missed his aim. Our latitude set is at thirty-six degrees, and we are approximately thirty minutes driving distance from any type of township, storefront or place with streetlamps. There are houses tucked away deep in those hills, do not think it is desolate. No Trespassing signs mean ominous things, you should not get lost in these woods; hermits and hemp farms, loaded shotguns held by shaky hands and blood hungry wolf-hybrid guard dogs nestled under trees filled with booby traps set by Vietnam Veterans and a variety of other power and fear mongrels, assorted such boogie men, convicts and ex-killers, anyone with something to hide hid there. A feral forest in the Wild West. We are facing those demons on this day. They watched us watching over this body.
It is not for us to ask why we may be meant to be in a place at a certain time, to see a stranger die before our eyes-a fellow man or woman leave their lifeless body where they last found it. It happens to all of us, we lose ourselves. As witnesses, we all looked the same. In death as empty vessels, hollow bodies, burnt out trees, shells of what they used to be, suddenly we find a stranger before us.
For 5 minutes or 100 moments, sound waves were swallowed by light waves. No cars-or bike(s) came on the road for a time. After a couple of awkward human coughs meant to clear all air, someone said something about medical school and having no service and we knew that all of us together were alone. The body had been hit or lost control while riding his motorcycle.
The Ducati motorcycle lay wedged deep in the slope of the soft crumbling cliff, its front wheel was buried near an exposed tree root, the back wheel was still spinning and the mans shoes were on. His helmet lay head side up like a bowl in a ditch, the face plate shattered. His appendages were contorted and badly broken. Two approached him while I stood frozen looking upward in between the trees to see if I could catch his spirit.
A loud whine came up in the distance, louder, closer, and then 3 motorcycles appeared around the bend in the road. All at once, laying their bikes in the road and shouting, screaming, they shouted like banging drums, throwing blame, as if an incantation of life by volume or praying for rain or dropping salt, as if any of that would help him now. There was no ceremony for time to turn around and come back, like they decided to. The ride was over. We went on our way.
No. Nothing could be done about what has been done. We were simply meant to see. We were meant to be stopped, dead in our tracks, to notice the silence, to hear these stories, to pause and take a moment to go.
Image credit By NPS Photo [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
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