Crash

There were times when, during some of my many solitary musings, I wondered how I never figured in any major accidents before. Not that I was wishing for it, mind you; in fact, I was thankful not to have been involved with any instance of that sort. It's just that it had occurred to me that I have been relatively safe my whole life.

Until today.

On my way back to the office from researching elsewhere (a story for another time, hehe), I experienced my first road accident. Seated at the back of the cab reading my research, I felt everything move in slow motion the way it does in movies. The cab driver's deep intake of breath accompanied by a strong thud of his foot on the break, the view of the car in front of us as the distance between the two cars became less and less every second, and my keen awareness of my cab's sliding motion as it swayed both me and the driver to an eventual hit. Everything was in slow motion until the actual crash--when everything almost instantly played in fast forward. This included the crashing sound by the destroyed hood, the sudden jolt of the car and me being smashed at the back of the  passenger seat--all in a quarter of a second.

It was weird--the feeling of everything slowing down then almost as suddenly jerking in fast forward without you knowing any better. It's as if you were given one last chance to view everything without its complicity before it's literally snatched away from you.

What's more and what's really weird was that, despite the real danger I was in, at the back of my head, I felt like laughing. I felt like saying, "ah, so that's how it feels like to crash into another car." 

Talk about one person being a total psycho. Tsk Tsk. 

Maybe it was because I knew my life wasn't in any real danger. Maybe it was that I was safe because I was at the back of the car. I dunno. But whatever it was, it got me thinking. If I can laugh at the face of danger, if I can face disaster and still maintain a laughing composure, does it mean I'm brave? Or does it mean I'm just one stupid fool ready to die?

Dunno. Argh.