Silent Monologues

#1

I was walking on a really crowded street the other day, shopping for clothes I ended up not buying. I've always liked the city more than the countryside. All these people, the higher life quality and the easy access to everything was what really got me loving places like that. I would much rather have to struggle while walking between a bunch of people in a crowd rather than having trouble climbing some tree, which I never really did, or spending all day under bright sun to collect the potatoes or apples that took months to grow. That definitely wasn't for me. Sure it has downsides, and I am the first one to admit that. Some people like quiet places, and the sound of birds isn't exactly city's harmony. But I didn't mind it. Don't get me wrong, I love silence. I love the sound of birds or the water flowing on a tiny river and I loved the afternoons I spent with my family on the country hearing nothing but that. And even at home, I like it to be quiet, but, from my point of view,that's totally understandable. No one, not even a big city person, likes not being able to sleep because they can hear the traffic from outside or all the twenty something year olds that just got off the club yelling and partying at a time where pretty much everyone else is already asleep. So while my home was quiet, the cities were chaos and I was used to it.

That's probably why, on that afternoon, it took me more than two seconds to realize what had happened. So, back to the story, I was walking down the street and all of a sudden I hear some people rushing to the opposite direction of where I was heading. That was sign one and I still didn't understand what had happened. Then I looked, like everyone would, at what they were looking at and I see this bus stopped in the middle of the street. That was sign two. And then I hear this lady telling the other one someone "got hit by the bus". But, at least for me who hadn't seen anything, it wasn't until I heard this person scream that I fully understood. And for a couple of minutes, that was the only soundtrack the city had. This awful, full of pain, sharp screams. And then came my inner struggle: should I go see or not really? It took me a while to make up my mind, but I decided not to. The amount of people that were standing there was already way more than the people that were actually happening and the lady's screams (based on the voice it looked like a woman but, then again, I really didn't see it) were explicit enough for me to try and visualize the rest. 

But I was hooked. I couldn't leave. The whole scenario was so artistic. And it's awful that I am saying it when someone was suffering so hard but it's the truth. And all I wanted to do is to view that piece of art where the star of such painting wasn't the woman nor the bus, but the people around it. Death is something that makes people shake in fear. It's one of the most powerful things the Earth has. Dare I say, it's what brings balance to the world and it's what destabilizes people at the same time. So good and so bad. So rough and dark, but so necessary. Nevertheless, we're selfish. For centuries and centuries, we've all been. The people that actually accept death are very few, especially when it comes to a loved one. It's hard to say goodbye forever, and for someone who doesn't really like commitments (and he idea of forever is more than certainly one), I wasn't a fan of death. The thought of it is usually enough, let alone actually seeing and hearing it. And just like death can come is so many different ways, people's reactions to it are also way diverse. There were these two ladies in front of me that were, just like pretty much all middle aged women do, discussing the subject. After the talk about each other's family and last episode of the most known soap opera at the moment, that was their theme now. "People shouldn't cross the street when the signal is red", one said to the other; something I knew since I was three but soomehow that was hard to follow from time to time. And that was the only lead I had about how it happened. A woman probably crossed the street when she shouldn't and poor bus driver couldn't stop early enough to avoid the accident. At least that's how I imagine it. Then I looked around. All these people with cellphones made me wonder if they were all calling for help. Adding chaos to the chaos, I thought. But, if you ask me, the most significant people I saw  were the woman and her kid. I couldn't really tell if they were mother and daughter or if the woman was her grandmother, but if I had to guess, I would go with the second one. They're coming to my direction and at this time I am still facing the disaster. The little kid, who should be around six years old or something but clearly I am not very talented when it comes to try and guess people's ages, asked the woman "what happened?". And I look at the woman and, at this point, I am intrigued to see how she's going to react. There I have, in front of me, just a couple of feet away, two females: one that's clearly disturbed by all of this and another one that's so oblivious to everything. It kind of triggers this sense of nostalgia and sadness. It was probably her first contact with "death" (at this point I had no idea if she was dead or not) and ignorance was really bliss. One the other hand, and the extreme opposite, we have what seems a very sensitive mature woman that's shaking everywhere. Her response was a simple "I don't know... and I don't care". It wasn't a harsh sentence as she was very upset; to be honest I wouldn't want my granddaughter exposed to the situation either, but I still wonder if that answer was the one I would have given.

That initial hook didn't go away, but I decided it was time for me to go. I still had stores I wanted to see and even I was getting a bit shocked at the whole scenario. The shopping part wasn't relevant at all and, a couple of hours later, I went back home. As I was crossing the street where it all had happened, with the cops still there, I looked at the floor. The red stains were covered with a white powder. I liked the contrast. White is known to simbolize peace and purity. It was then that hit me that it was probably way worse than I expected. All this suffer and agony disguised with dust. The heaviness of that with the 5pm sky in December certainly added quite a drastic scenario. And I couldn't stop looking at the ground. I have no clue what happened to the woman that got ran over, but I still think about her occasionally.I could feel death still there, still close. And for once, I was glad I wasn't death's target.