I just drove by the spot where I saw a dead man lay a few weeks ago.

It was surreal, I don't know why this time above the rest was so different. I drive past those curves 3 times a week and never pay any attention to it. Tonight it hit me.



I was stopped by a passer-by, the air was dense. Every night in the Florida summer is dense, but this wasn't from the humidity. A friend of my younger brother was there to share this dreadful experience with me. The effervescent sounds of smooth jazz popping out of the radio slowly transitioned into a lugubrious dance of out of place notes and mis-matched emotions. I felt like we had stopped in something that we shouldn't have stopped in. I wish we had stayed home, this wasn't worth sneaking away to smoke a cigar. The laughter wore off as we inspected the scene from behind my car's windshield.

Soon, a group of people had gathered and EMTs were arriving. We made naive statements such as "he must be catching his breath on the ground" faded away and the reality set in... This man was dead.

He had hit a guide rail and was ejected 25 feet out of his windshield onto a spot on the ground no more that 30 paces from where my car stopped. A man a quarter mile away heard the crash and rushed there. This was the man that had stopped me.

I couldn't help but wonder what he was listening to on the radio, or who he was talking to on the phone? Was he so overcome with joy that he lost focus? Did he have a girlfriend or wife? Was he angry, sad, or drunk? There were no signs of alcohol, but a saturated black top can be as formidable as the bottle.

What was he thinking about? his sister? how much he loves big league chew? Who he would bang this weekend? Going to church the next day? How hard it is to find sour punch straws?

He looked young.



When I started down the road tonight I thought, he had no idea he was going to die when he passed this. I kept repeating that until I reached the crash site. I wondered when he knew he would die or if he even had time to reach such a conclusion.

I found myself going a little too fast around those curves and I couldn't help but see that I was in his position. The only difference is that if that corner was my fate, I would have been thinking about another man losing his life instead of sour punch straws or big league chew...