Gyro Combo

I sit in my office cubicle a lot. It's quiet, the computer has dual monitors, and there's a set of speakers so I don't have to use earbuds for an annoyingly long period of time in a library or common area to study. If I go home, I sit on my bed, facing the TV in my room. Either I end up turning it on and watching reruns of shows I don't actually like or I fall asleep. In my office I usually end up browsing the Internet for inordinate amounts of time, but I feel a little more productive in a quite office chair than anywhere else, even if it isn't accomplishing anything.

The weekend is no exception. But, on Fridays I usually indulge and think "if I'm not doing anything fun, the funnest option I have to get some good food." This particular evening I walked out of my office around 6pm. It's about a 7 minute walk to the student parking lot, across a busy road on campus. I waited for the light to change and started moving with the sound of the electronic bird tweets signaling the walk signal. I hadn't taken many steps when I saw a white, mid-nineties four-door sedan about 100 feet before the crosswalk. I stutter stepped because even though he could've slammed on his breaks and made the stop, I already knew he wasn't going to. He slammed right into a teal, early 2000's SUV of some kind. He caught the back, passenger side panel and spun the car around. His air bags deployed. Another guy was in the crosswalk with me and we both stopped for a second. I realized the red hand started flashing and we were just standing in the middle of the road.

We both kept walking. I looked at the driver of the SUV who was now facing south instead of north. We made eye contact as this middle-aged, dress suit clad, matronly looking red-headed woman took off her seatbelt. I kept looking back. "At least their okay," the kid walking next to me said. No one was getting out of the white sedan. I kept looking back. I heard another man I had passed on the sidewalk before the crosswalk, calling out to both drivers, "are you guys okay? Ma'm are you okay?" The last time I looked back, he was walking between cars. There were flashing blue lights from the BYU police squad car that had already arrived on the scene.

I went through a drive-thru and brought my food back to my office, so I could watch some TV on Netflix with a faster Internet connection than at my apartment. As I approached the same intersection in my car (it was late enough I could park any where on campus by this point), I wondered if it had gotten cleaned up. About 30 minutes had passed and the accident hadn't seemed to terrible to me. I rounded the corner and saw flares stopping traffic from passing north to south. There was an ambulance and a fire truck. Medical personnel was surrounding someone on the pavement. I couldn't see any more than that.

I'm a real jerk sometimes. People invite me to do things and I decline because I'd rather not hassle with the social expectations of laughing at a stupid joke, or pretending I think someone is making an intelligent critique on society when really they're just regurgitating some nonsense from their parents, teacher, or favorite political pundit. Don't get me wrong, I'm not any better, but I would venture that I'm a lot more self aware. Meeting people is hard. I used to be good at it but I forgot how, somewhere over the course of the last few years. I feel awkward and self-conscious when I try to strike up a conversation with someone who I'm assuming is thinking about my acne or my weight or my outfit.

Despite all of this, I really thought I was a good person. I thought if someone needed help, I would drop anything to lend a hand. I walked by those cars and for a split second thought "I should see if they're okay." Then I kept walking. I assumed they all had phones. I assumed that because I didn't see anyone slumped over in their seats that they were fine, just another traffic accident. And in reality, there are all sorts of lawsuits about good Samaritans who get the short end of the stick because they've given improper care at the scene of an accident. I'm not trained in emergency response. I don't really know what the right response would've been. It was probably more of a lose/lose situation. But I can't really change anything now. I didn't stop.