Crash Into Me
Last night while I was getting ready for bed, I heard the sounds of screeching tires, then metal crunching, then more screeching and more metal crunching. We hear accidents at the intersection near out apartment from time to time, but this one sounded bad. It was enough noise to lure me out of my bedroom, to throw on some more clothes and look out on the street. I was amazed to find TONS of people who had already done the same thing. It happened at 11:32 p.m. and I guess it was loud enough to either wake up everyone or lure them away from whatever they were doing on a Thursday night. The funny thing is that there was only one car involved in the accident. No one was seriously hurt. The worst damage was to a street sign pole, which had suffered a serious break and was lying on the lawn of the house across the street from us.
And even after people saw that no one was really hurt, everyone still lingered. People asked the crowd at large if 911 had been called. Others answered it had been called. Someone shouted that no one was hurt. A cop car came with loud sirens. People started chatting amongst themselves about what had happened, asking details about what caused the accident. But, the fact is, no one really knew.
After awhile people started going back inside. Back to their separate lives. And I went back to mine. This accident was the first time I have seen so many of my neighbors. And even after having lived here for 2.5 years, I realized how odd and sad it is that I hardly even recognized any of them. But what might be more sad is the fact that it took a screeching, crashing accident to bring us all out onto the street that night.
Human behavior can be very odd. There's that whole idea (from some older movie) that people are at their best when they're at their worst, meaning we reach out and help others more when faced with or in the aftermath of diaster, but yet, during times of normalcy we fight over parking spots and yell at people who cut us off on the freeway. And this teeny little accident where no one was hurt reminds me a little bit of all that. It also reminds me of that movie, Crash, from over the summer. The movie opened with the quote below.
"It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something."
Sometimes, on certain levels, this concept can be very, very relevant and very, very human: sad and hopeful at the same time.
And even after people saw that no one was really hurt, everyone still lingered. People asked the crowd at large if 911 had been called. Others answered it had been called. Someone shouted that no one was hurt. A cop car came with loud sirens. People started chatting amongst themselves about what had happened, asking details about what caused the accident. But, the fact is, no one really knew.
After awhile people started going back inside. Back to their separate lives. And I went back to mine. This accident was the first time I have seen so many of my neighbors. And even after having lived here for 2.5 years, I realized how odd and sad it is that I hardly even recognized any of them. But what might be more sad is the fact that it took a screeching, crashing accident to bring us all out onto the street that night.
Human behavior can be very odd. There's that whole idea (from some older movie) that people are at their best when they're at their worst, meaning we reach out and help others more when faced with or in the aftermath of diaster, but yet, during times of normalcy we fight over parking spots and yell at people who cut us off on the freeway. And this teeny little accident where no one was hurt reminds me a little bit of all that. It also reminds me of that movie, Crash, from over the summer. The movie opened with the quote below.
"It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something."
Sometimes, on certain levels, this concept can be very, very relevant and very, very human: sad and hopeful at the same time.
posted by Follow the Frog at 7:32 PM
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