Have you ever seen a dead person when you weren’t expecting it? If you have, what was it like? Please respond to this email, if you feel like sharing. If you haven’t, what makes you so sure? I ask because I think saw a dead person today, and I wasn’t expecting it. I was biking back from the park, brain activity flattened by the late summer heat. As I crossed an intersection, I saw a crowd of people on the adjacent corner, but I didn’t think much of it. Then I saw a motorbike, smashed and crinkled, lifeless on its side and surrounded by shattered glass and other metal bits. I didn’t feel anything, mostly because my mind was not actively processing the visual information it was receiving, and I continued to look around. There was a person, face down, helmet cracked, limbs splayed not in a grotesque way but not in a way that they should’ve been. Someone is not supposed to be facedown on a street corner surrounded by glass and onlookers and a frantic woman on the phone with paramedics. My stomach dropped.
Sad story