| This
was the last thing he wanted to see.
A collision. More than just a meeting of metal beast against
monolith, the proverbial unstoppable force against the proverbial
immovable object. More like the wrapping of a force, detected
only by touch, around an axis, visible only with the presence
of those caught in the force, with other forces about, standing
by ready to be put into motion, ready to pick up the pieces
of that which has fallen apart: sweep up the green cubes of
shattered safety glass, jagged teeth of plastic, pools of inert
and flammable fluids dripping from the once mighty carcass forged
by minds thousands of miles away.
Still, the act of observing could not stop the inevitable. Perhaps
it was not he who had crashed. He had been standing still, and
it was the world which rapidly approached all around him, and
he jumped and danced with the best of them, he'd studied all
the moves, and this time he simply failed to get out of the
way.
He didn't know that that was the day his poorly cobbled gameface,
a leathered, laminated collection of sparkless hollows carved
by the repetitive stupor of years, of pretty cathode rays, minding
aping of mindless apes who bore the ring of celebrity, the winces
of untold, unremembered beatings and insults and not given in
return, would calcify, stained with red and fuel, into his true
expression: a face to greet the faces transfigured into a living
death mask, made pliable by the miracle solvents of alcohol
and adrenaline.
Supposing he'd noticed his fate, had become aware of his situation?
Although
some take comfort in quantum physics, in Heisenberg's Uncertainty
Principle, where the act of observation changes the observed,
he believed, like so many, unaware, that Life was more closely
aligned with Satori, the state of perfection of perception where
the observer and the observed are one and no amount of seeking,
trances, illumination or altered states of consciousness would
change the outcome of any dynamic system. It all comes to a
rest sooner or later, all always hoping for later, except when
desire wishes it sooner. But even desire was part of the system,
a constant, like the speed of light.
Not that he believed in fatalistic determinism, or constants.
And after the collision, the words. My life will change. But
those who have paid to learn to observe what really happens
come to the conclusion that a dramatic alteration of the day
to day is just a detour for most, and the true wish of the afflicted
is a return to normalcy, to the comfort of routine. He never
knew how difficult the simple things were. And difficult had
become impossible. If he'd known why, he could've died happy.
He got he wanted. He lived. Years later, when asked about what
happened, "Things got fucked up" was all he could
muster.
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