Brownian Motion

A stream of consciousness exercise inspired by the words Metatext Pills Tar

Image - still from you tube

This is a Stream of Consciousness exercise hosted by the inimitable

Edith Bow

and with thanks to

Emil Ottoman

for these prompt words:

WARNING - this writing contains graphic descriptions of a death and has themes of guilt and aftermath and futility and is based on true events experienced by the writer so is particularly stark.

Metatext, Pill, Tar

Brownian Motion

I’ve watched the video of her dying too many times it almost doesn’t mean anything anymore. Almost. I saw it in the office; at the police station; in the office again; at the solicitor’s office; in the coroners court; in the office again; in my own office - again and again and again, wind and rewind and watch and rewind as if you can will it not to happen if you just keep trying and shouting at the driver to get out of the car and you hope nobody comes into the room and sees you watching it like a ghoul -and you watched it in the training room - stopping and starting at the key learning moments to emphasise them, with the health and safety manager, and because people just had to leave the room, the ones who hadn’t seen it a dozen time before. And then the grievances for shock and of course who didn’t see THAT coming? Lives hit by the ricochets.

I still sometimes see it at night

Her face hit the tarmac like she was dead already, a sack of bones in a long black faux fur coat, headscarf and shopping bags too heavy. The driver didn’t notice that he’d hit her. He looked up and she was already under his wheels and I’m shouting at him to stop but I’m shouting at a screen.

Fumbling for something in the glove compartment, checking his phone for the next pick up. A quick look left and right, but she’s already under his wheels and then he’s rolling over her, he doesn’t even know that he’s hit her until that soft bump, and then one more as the front wheels then the back wheels crush her brittle old bird bones. She’s soft, insubstantial, already a ghost. How else could he not feel that?

The first sign he knows there’s something wrong is the kid in the tracksuit that runs across shouting pointing at him, then down to the front of the car, and he winds down the window looks out, the driver, hand still on his phone, still not knowing, but I do, and I’m filling in the blanks, speaking their words for them because I can put myself right in the scene. From this front row seat, I see the exact second when he knows, the panic actions flowing and I’m - just get out of the fucking car - but he doesn’t. He didn’t. He puts it in reverse, like he was making sure, only he thinks she’s at the front and not right under. Two more bumps and the kid with his hands to his head, screaming at him, and the old lady now most definitely dead.

---

And as we can see from the disturbing footage

And the previous records of near miss activity

And the testimony of numerous witnesses

That there had not been an effective risk assessment

That current design of the car park was inadequate

Yet we do not consider this was foreseeable

But nonetheless we recommend tendering for a new design.

And temporary preventive signage

---

At the coroners court the sobriety of it all, dispassionate: it’s just the facts, maam, the shopping list of injuries, actions and inactions, distances and speeds, ingredients for a death. The statements read from paper and not from the mouths of the faces with the eyes that saw and the minds that see and still see it. And the video again, it’s silent but my mind is filling in the blanks much better now with bump and crunch and bump and crunch again, and the tears of the driver and the sound of him blowing his nose and the traces of pity in the copper’s voice as he puts a cup of tea down on the desk in front of his hanging head.

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In view of your guilty plea

And your previous good character

And the plea in mitigation of your counsel

And the character references

And the testimony of your psychologist

And the psychological reports

And the tragic circumstances of this case

And the mitigating circumstances of the design of the car park

And the impact on your family

And that the victim’s death was almost instantaneous

And that she may have been unconscious

And that she may not have felt the car reversing over her

And that she had severe osteoporosis

And that she was a particularly vulnerable person

---

I’ve imagined him in his cell that first night, hand shaking pills from a rattling bottle, staring through bars and thinking of his daughters and running it over in his mind again and again. Maybe after months of it his remorse might turn from suicide to resentment. Whose fault was it anyway? Stupid old cow, what was she in the middle of the road, walking in front of my car? She’d had her life and now she’s ruined mine and I can’t forgive myself so why should I forgive her? Something like that maybe? Maybe not.

The swirling coincidences that lead to a death or away from it….the phone does not ring. The driver looks up. The woman isn’t old. The woman hears the engine. There were more railings. The car park was redesigned sooner. The driver got out of the car. The car had collision control. He drives forward not back. It’s Wednesday so I don’t see it.

It’s Brownian Motion.

The flowers tied to the railings with the card that said “We love you Nanna in heaven always” in the handwriting of children, were never taken down until they rotted away almost to nothing and nobody knew what they were any more and I don’t remember her name.

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This stream of consciousness work is based on true events and trains of thought that still come to mind from that event.