#451 Car Crash While Hitchhiking- Denis Johnson
“The traveling salesman had fed me pills that made the
linings of my veins feel scraped out. My jaw ached. I knew every raindrop by
its name. I sensed everything before it happened. I knew a certain Oldsmobile
would stop for me even before it slowed, and by the sweet voices of the family
inside it I knew we’d have an accident in the storm.”
And yes, all that happened; the horror of the accident and
the realities of the lives of the victims, all untouched by this hitchhiker. He
is a mere spectator, unattached to life and unharmed by this car crash. He is a
ghost, an angel, a demon? Or is he merely the manifest meaninglessness we all
pick up along the road.
“I looked down into the great pity of a person’s life on
this earth. I don’t mean that we all end up dead, that’s not the great pity. I
mean that he couldn’t tell me what he was dreaming, and I couldn’t tell him
what was real.”
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