Last night when I was driving my daughter home from her dance class, she made a comment about drivers who honk their horns at other cars when they're impatient. She said that she didn't think people would act that way if they weren't protected by the metal shell of the car. People feel free to behave rudely, she said, because they don't think about the people in the cars, but rather they just think about the cars as objects.
My soon-to-be-driving daughter's insight reminded me of a blog from a few years ago (my pre-"Rebekah's Core" days.) In the interest of gathering more of my ramblings under one cyber "roof," I thought I'd re-print a copy of that vintage blog here...
October 26, 2007 (from MySpace, oh my!)
On my way to the Screenwriting Expo, I saw a truck fall from the sky.
Traffic was moving along at a moderate pace, too congested for anyone to speed. All of a sudden, I saw a truck flying across two or three lanes just about two car lengths ahead of me. Last thing I heard, flying trucks haven't been widely produced. I was reminded of that tornado movie, Twister, and the scene in which cows fly. To me that looked so hokey. If the wind was powerful enough to rip a heifer off the ground, wouldn't it also dislodge enough dirt and other small debris in order to make such a dark cloud that the cow wouldn't even be visible? And where were the pigs? Why weren't any sow soaring through the sky with their barnyard friends? Surely a tornado capable of launching cattle could manage to detour a few little piggies on their way to market. But I digress. The flying truck has lingered in my mind, weighing heavy on my heart. It was a landscaper's truck, nothing fancy, the kind with wooden sides. I had passed this truck and it had passed me. Traffic was moving slowly enough that I had even noticed the driver. He was a middle-aged Hispanic man, perhaps a poor immigrant who had struggled as a day-laborer to save enough cash to purchase this humble vehicle and start his own business. I don't know why I noticed him in the mass of encased humanity weaving along this vein of Los Angeles infrastructure. Perhaps it was to prepare me for a life lesson. How many times have I been running late for a meeting and the only obstacles between me and my goal are all these annoying cars? It's a car vs. car battle on the freeways of Los Angeles. Sometimes we forget there are people, human souls, encased in these metal obstacles. When I saw the flying truck, I slowed down lest it clip the top of my car. It tumbled slow-motion through the sky, shedding parts which I maneuvered around like in one of those driving video games at Chuck E. Cheese. As it rolled and slid to the right side of the freeway, I cautiously split focus between the safety (?) of the road ahead and the surreal tragedy in my rear-view mirror. Gagging, I fought the impulse to vomit. The truck was motionless. It was a shell, but I had no way of knowing if it contained life any more. One minute I was glancing at a stranger passing me by; the next he may have breathed his last breath. I don't know. Was he wearing his seat belt? I don't know. If he survived, will he be able to afford the necessary medical bills? He was most likely an independent contractor. Did he carry any kind of disability insurance? How will he be able to feed his children if he's unable to work? If he's not harmed too badly, will he be able to work without his truck? Questions pounded my head and I flipped the radio on to see if there was any news. The traffic report rattled off slow-downs and inconveniences due to generic collisions. Then they got to the wreck I had just witnessed: "Traffic is slowed due to a roll-over on the right shoulder" was all they said before moving casually on to a tacky mattress ad. That's all? I imagined how serious this event would be to the family of the driver, this trivial inconvenience to commuters. On the way home, still thinking of the driver of the truck and his family, I yielded the right of way to another car as our two lanes merged into one. Then I realized that there was a man in sport car riding my tail. As soon as he got a break in traffic, he wizzed past me impatiently, laying on his horn as he passed. I had inconvenienced the poor fellow by delaying him a fraction of a second, and he made certain all would know about his anger issues. I pitied him. He didn't know. He'd been lulled into the sad belief that the world revolved around him and all of these moving shells of metal were only meaningless obstacles. I've acted like that too. I've been there, but I don't want to go back.
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