Tuesday, March 31, 2009

A Waking Nightmare

FOXNews.com - 'Sorry' Note Left Near Texas Hit-and-Run Victim - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

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How many times have all of us come within a hairsbreadth of what this individual experienced?
Assuming it was unintentional, empathy, if not sympathy, consumes me.
Whether it is the radio, food, cell phone or just fixation on a road side object, distractions have more than once caused me sheepishness and guilt.
Does that prevent me from muttering under my breath when someone else does it?
Alas, I confess that the immediate assumption made when I am cut off or nearly missed is a curiously angry one.
Though reconsideration often follows, my instinctive reaction is invariable and unforgiving.
The offending party is any one of the following: jerk, idiot, stupid idiot, moron, unspeakable moron, etc.
I posted a blog a looong time ago that asked the question Do automobiles cause us to channel our true nature? If that is the case, I feel I need a nice, long sabbatical in some nice Franciscan monastery.
But about this alleged hit-and-run driver; I'm sure you can imagine the fevered rationalizing.
It's a safe bet that whoever was driving the vehicle has a family. Perhaps in the shock that followed the thought process progressed along the following lines: terror, overwhelming remorse, deadly guilt, dawning fear, imagined consequences, involuntary manslaughter conviction, ten year prison term, iron bars, brutal cell mates, sobbing family members . . . . and before long, out comes the notebook and the pen.
Barring a supernatural fear of the long arm of the law, or the rare, indeed, near extinct impregnable conscience, any one of us might have written the same note on the same tear-stained paper.
The million dollar question is, in a vacuum, with no consequences, who remains after it is discovered that there is nothing to be done short of calling the morgue?

2 comments:

wncjr said...

I doubt the driver was a texan.

Rae Ryan said...

new yorker, or anyway, a northeasterner, i was thinking.