I wanted to stop, too, just to see more than help I think, but obviously we’d only be getting in the way, and so we proceeded slowly past, reverently bearing witness. The tone in the car was suddenly very different, the music playing now all wrong, an insult. We drove by the other vehicle involved in the accident (the mathematics of the crash mysterious and vast) and saw a young man, just as white as the moon, wide-eyed and breathing hard. The blanket wrapped around his shoulders gave him an oddly spectral appearance, and his friends stood around him as if surrounding a miracle– frightened to either be present or to step outside of the moment.

They were all so young.

This accident was just an arbitrary swoosh, something that could have happened to anybody or nobody with equal measure. And the day itself was so vivid and beautiful— surrounding us like an indifferent God, emitting an inexhaustible palette of autumn colour and sun that so clearly, so urgently required our attention and investment. It was such an odd transit that all we could do was give quiet thanks as we passed through, grateful and lucky to have home still waiting.