palace of winds

I just barely missed the light. It miffs me a little, actually; the turn lane isn’t long enough for all the people who want to turn right from 6 onto 12, and when it’s busy the light always cuts a portion of them off from turning. You’d think it would have sensors that worked well enough to let everyone through. I was near the end of the line, but even with the two people who slid past on red there were five of us left waiting.

So I nearly had a front row seat for the accident less than thirty seconds later. I was looking the other way, actually, and when I happened to glance left I thought how curious it was that there was a white car angling onto the shoulder, and that a truck and its massive trailer were veering suddenly left, toward oncoming traffic. Ooo, almost a fender-bender, I thought.

Until I saw the back of the white car. It was crushed. The trunk was completely crumpled in, all the way to the back windshield. Beyond that I couldn’t tell; I couldn’t see very well, since there was a line of cars strung across the intersection, a confusion of people trying to pull over and pull around, the truck hesitating and finally moving up and onto the shoulder beyond the wrecked car.

I wanted to help, but I was across the intersection and there were already people edging over, and everyone nowadays has a cell. So the light changed and I finally made my turn, and kept on going. I hope everyone’s all right.