Aesthetic's Near Death Experience · 8:36pm Apr 27th, 2012
I almost died the other day.
I’d just written and posted Aesthetic’s Preantepenultimate, and I was very proud of my preposterous verbosity. I decided to go grocery shopping, because all I had left in the house was rice and pasta. That is, I think, a situation that other students might be able to identify with.
Grocery shopping is an interesting activity for me, because I can never do it right. I can write my grocery list out two days in advance, and I won’t even need to bring it to the store—once there, I will be able to recall everything I wrote down, usually in order. Remembering what to buy is not the problem.
The problem is that I can never get it all in one round. I’ll get to the dairy and remember I forgot to grab my hamburger buns. I’ll get the buns and realize I didn’t grab cheese. I become The Wanderer, roaming around the store aimlessly in search of simple household foodstuffs. I pass elderly ladies, who stare at me, baffled by this grocery-ing iconoclast they see before them.
Once out of the store I strike out for the bus stop, because I have to take city transit everywhere. It’s raining, which is great because that means it isn’t snowing (Yes, as far south as Ontario City we can still get snow until the end of April. Thanks, Canada.) I have to cross an intersection to get to the bus stop. This is where I almost die.
We’ll call him Shapfak, because that sounds incredibly stupid. We’ll also call him a he, because assuming he’s a woman would be sexist.
Anyway, Shapfak decides he’s going to turn through the intersection whether there’s a pedestrian there or not. Furthermore, Shapfak doesn’t do regular turning; and he certainly doesn’t care about the rainwater all over the road. No, Shapfak is extreme. How extreme? Picture the average speed at which a car makes a left turn through an intersection. Now toss that car down a fucking mountain and shoot missiles at it. That’s how extreme.
That little white man is on, which means that yes, I am supposed to be crossing the road right now. Unfortunately, the rules of the road are very much imaginary constructs. The two ton vehicle of steel and glass coming toward me is not. I’ve been hit by cars before. It’s something I try to avoid.
I’m right in front of Shapfak’s front driver side wheel, and if he hits me—well, there’s a good test you can use to check whether or not a car is moving fast enough to conceivably kill you. You ask “Is the car moving?” If you answer yes, well, I have bad news.
There were no animal instincts screaming in the back of my brain. Dane Cook’s voice did not cry out “You’re about to get struck by a vehicle!” I did not feel the hand of the authority, or see my life flash before my eyes. Instead I sort of hauled on my grocery bags and hopped to the side a little. It was pretty anticlimactic—I didn’t even jump that far.
But I did jump far enough that Shapfak drove on by, not even hitting me with his mirror. The whole thing was over in several heartbeats, leaving me with more of a sense of “huh,” then of abject terror. I realize that I’m standing in the middle of the road, so I hurry on over to the other side even before the solid man turns into the flashing hand.
I could have just been hit, I think as I reach the other side of the street. I could have been killed! I realize that instead, I jumped out of the way. My own actions have spared me serious injury or death. I didn’t just save a life, I saved the most important life.
Mine. Obviously.
A sense of heroism fills my entire being. All my soul within me burning, I turn back to see Shapfak’s shitty car retreating down the street. I summon my experience as a writer of over two hundred thousand words of heroic fantasy and open my mouth to speak.
“Fuck you,” I say.
Then I went home and baked a cake. Black forest, four layers. I’m eating a slice of it now. This was the most interesting thing to happen to me all week.
The moral of the story is: you can’t trust the system.
Remarkable heroism, and I'm glad you stepped up. It would suck if the writer of such glorious fiction up and died on me. I would be most upset, I mean, how dare a writer hook so many, so viciously with their flawless word-smithing and then go up and die, the audacity of it all. Fortunately, you insured your survival, now get back to work!
Sarcasm Off: Good to see you survived, yes... getting hit by cars sucks. And yes, the laws of traffic are little more than an illusion, like all social structures, built upon the premise that if everyone accepts them, they become reality. Hard to argue with 2 tons of metal and plastic moving at speed though.
Made my fucking day.
Why can't I fav blogs? ಠ_ಠ
This was the most entertaining "I almost got hit by a car" story, ever.
Oh and it would suck if you have died, i like your stories.
88918
Maybe someday I'll tell you the "I actually got hit by a car" story.
88914
The universe can't kill me, I write fanfiction!
It is a good thing you're in Ontario and not Quebec. If that had happened in Quebec, the fellow would have swerved to hit you, stopped the car, got out, muttered "Isti de tabarnak de calesse," and then put a cigarette (that he had been chain smoking) out on your corpse. We don't fuck around in the 514 bro.
88929
I'll have to take your word for it, as the only times I've been to Quebec were in Hull/Gatineau, and a water park somewhere around that area that I went to when I was like eight years old. Still, I have friends who have said interesting things about the rules of the road in Quebec. Namely, that they're treated less as rules and more as guidelines.
Also, I'm allergic to cigarettes. So if the car didn't kill me, the second hand smoke might.
88923
Oh goody. I shall anticipate a long, detailed narrative of this experience in epic prose.
88939
Joking aside, the main serious difference between Quebec and the rest of the world in terms of traffic rules is that people will jaywalk wherever the fuck they please. It's rare people will wait till they're at a light or a crosswalk, they will just up and go in, even in heavy trafficked areas. That and people don't really care for rules, hell we riot when we win hockey games.
Holy crap! Glad you're ok.
Greater words were never spoken :L
This reminds me of several instances in my life.
Crazy Canadians!
AestheticB: You can't trust the system
Me: MAN!
Silver here,
Glad you avoided that little brush with death! Not many people are that lucky!
That said, I'm on standby for the next chapter of 'Ponies Make War' and I hope that project is going well.
Would have been a real tragedy if you'd gone down. Not only to fans, but to the freakin' WORLD!
Silver out!
Superb work AB, I especially loved the characterization in this one. I really felt like I could relate.
But yea, people suck. And let me tell you, it's not any better in America... If anything it's worse...
That little green man lied to you, it was not safe to walk and he still was like, "Sure dude, you got this." ON another totally unrelated note, does becoming a fanfiction writer grant you incredible reaction times?
Imagine what would have happen if he'd died?
We'd all have been really sad for 1-7 days. Then the reality would hit us, PMW will never be finished.
I'd end up having to find AB's former place of residence. Then steal his computer, notebooks, and any random pieces of paper he may have right stuff down on. Then kidnap all his editors and pre-readers (Which would be a big hassle, and I have the strange feeling that f***ing with Vimbert would be unadvised), and lock them all in my pantry until they finished it.
On another note, You bake? That's cool. Ever get into tart making?
90660
I do all my work in Google docs. The Immortal Game, the collection I write the fic in, is currently 32 documents large. That's a doc for every chapter except the last, plus various documents for planning, and Deicide. You'd have a lot to work with.
Unfortunately, you'd still be screwed. While the first wave of collaborators has already read into chapter 19, no one knows what happens in 20; it isn't written down anywhere. One person other than me knows, and that's my older brother, whom I told while hammered Christmas Eve after playing our family drinking game. He might not actually remember—the game is not light on the alcohol.
I don't "bake" so much as I "follow directions given by the internet." I have a particular affinity for black forest cake; when well made it's almost sexual. I have not the slightest clue what is involved in making tarts. Still, making food is interesting to me and someday I'd like to learn all that I can. It's just so hard to find the motivation to cook when you're only serving one.
90709
You'd be surprised what you can get people to remember when there's enough pressure. I'm certain we could get your brother to remember something. Worst case scenario, I have to break into a morgue, steal your brain, and surgically implant it in the poor guy.
Now I'm gonna have try black forest cake. A tart is kind of like a mini-pie, with no top. It usually has a thicker, richer crust, and is more flat.
damn, what can I say? I'm glad you're not dead.
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Oh, and by the way, now that the traffic signal has lied to you, and you know you can't trust the system, what do you think of indoctrination theory?
AB, I know this blog post is years old, but I just had practically the same experience as you and I needed to share.
I was walking back home from the bus stop while it was raining in April in Ontario City. White man was on the crossing indicator, but some Asian guy had the nerve to honk at me while he made a fucking left turn at 0.98c, nearly hitting me as I jumped out of the way in the nick of time.
Fuck that guy