A man on the road

A man sat on the slight incline of the grassy median with his knees loosely to his chest. He didn’t move. His sunglasses hid from us any clue from his eyes, but he stayed there, sternly looking through any possible engaging social distance to the cars that slowly passed on the highway.

He glared, not at the crawling traffic, but through that as well, perhaps back through time into the past few minutes. A car lay flipped a few yards to his right. Broken glass scattered over the long grass, catching bits of the setting sun. The man left his shades on. He could have been a statue.

Police and firemen were just arriving, but traffic already slowed to a procession. The solemn man was on display.

There was no blood, at least none visible. The speed at which the police and firemen moved did not relay any serious injury. There was just the car and the man, glaring.

I suppose it would be embarrassing on one hand, expensive on the other. Who knows what was racing through that guy’s mind. Tell the wife? Afford the insurance? Late for dinner?

And for all the cars and drivers that looked over and made their way past the scene into faster lanes, it must be very awkward for the man in the grass, like those that see a boy who’s wet his pants try to dart into a nearby bathroom.

Maybe it was a spilled drink, but in that spot, the boy knows what everybody who sees it will think. It’s the same for this guy, I’m afraid.

Sulking in the moment, a broken vehicle draws stares and ire from the thousands of us who just wanted to get somewhere. At least if there had been injuries, we could have said, “How horrible!” and dished out a bit of pity.

Now, for the stern man, it’s just our quick judgments on what happened and off to the rest of the evening.

Poor bastard.

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