a glimpse of someone's death
Here's a question: outside of a hospital, how many times in your life have you been next to a dying stranger?
I don't mean someone with cancer or AIDS or anything like that. I mean someone in the last minutes of life, whose little world is actively closing itself off before disappearing entirely.
Chances are you don't know. Someone yells, "All right people, let's give this man some space! Nothing to see here!" Then he's whisked off in an ambulance. Or before any of that you just walk on.
Off the top of my head, I can think of three times I may have seen strangers dying. One was a little boy, about my age at the time. I don't know what happened to him. The other one was a high-school student last summer who fell from some rocks at Yosemite Falls. We called the paramedics, but when they saw his condition they put away most of their equipment. He'd fallen almost fifteen feet and hit his head.
The most recent was yesterday. I was meeting Mitch, Afui, and my girlfriend Natasha at exit one of the Gongguan MRT station. I got there right at 12:30, so of course I was the first one. It was raining, and I assumed that all the people standing under the eave were just waiting for the crosswalk. I looked around the crowd to make sure no one else had gotten there early.
I almost walked onto the man. He was lying on the sidewalk, parallel to the road. Probably some drunk, although it was a little early for that. Then there was an old woman looking nervous. Someone talking in a hushed, urgent voice on a cell phone. A car parked in the street with one door dangling open. A worried, balding man with a tie tack and white shirt soaked with blood, navy-blue pants and a black belt with a tacky octagonal fake-gold-and-black buckle-a company man, with the kind of helpless panic particular to Willy Loman types who repress all problems that can't be dealt with by the complaints department. There was blood on the ground, too, and a gaping wound on the forehead of the man on the ground, whose appearance completely escapes me now. His head was lolling a little as he lay there.
Public death is terrifying. I was able to walk right up to this man, entirely by accident. We expect death to be better-regulated than that. Maybe we even need it. He was unconscious, and when he breathed his stomach swelled and shrank as if he'd just finished a very long run. Little sounds were coming out of his mouth. What was going on inside this man's head? It felt obscene for all of us to be allowed to see this. Did he know we were here?
My first thought was to interfere. Had they moved him already? Did they know not to? Had they even called the paramedics. Somehow I didn't know how to say "paramedics" in Chinese-what if this person died because I didn't know how to say "paramedics"? What if someday I die because someone is unwilling to try to communicate the idea of paramedics in a foreign language?
I stood behind something a little ways away and called everyone. "Don't come to exit one, Mitch and Afui say to meet at exit two." "Don't come to exit one. Me and Natasha will be at exit two."
A woman walked by laughing about something on her cell phone. Two girls hurried past, away from the man with the head wound. Two more girls were talking about how they were late for something. I wandered back near the man. Why? I couldn't do anything. But had they called the paramedics? Sometimes everyone assumes that someone's already done that, so no one does. How long had he been here? Everyone knows you're not supposed to cluster around this kind of thing.
I thought about the people I'd seen walking away. If I were that man, how would I want people to walk away? How could people walk away from me in that position? Didn't they know I was dying? Dying-the last and worst thing that ever happens. How can they see me like this, unaware even of what's happening to me, and then go enjoy lunch with their friends? Don't they understand that things are different now?-that just because they're comfortable in their nice unsmashed bodies doesn't mean I am. How can they have so much while I have so little?
I left, because I was too self-conscious to stay, because you're not supposed to cluster around that kind of thing. On my left were people walking the other way, toward the man, who they might not notice if they went straight into the MRT. The ambulance passed on my right. Ten minutes later I could see its lights from across the street, still by the man. Down the road it was heavy traffic. I don't think the man lived. No one pulls over for an ambulance here. Half an hour later, while I was eating curry with Natasha, Mitch, and Afui, I tried to think of why I wasn't feeling very conversational, and decided I must have gone to bed too late the night before.
I don't mean someone with cancer or AIDS or anything like that. I mean someone in the last minutes of life, whose little world is actively closing itself off before disappearing entirely.
Chances are you don't know. Someone yells, "All right people, let's give this man some space! Nothing to see here!" Then he's whisked off in an ambulance. Or before any of that you just walk on.
Off the top of my head, I can think of three times I may have seen strangers dying. One was a little boy, about my age at the time. I don't know what happened to him. The other one was a high-school student last summer who fell from some rocks at Yosemite Falls. We called the paramedics, but when they saw his condition they put away most of their equipment. He'd fallen almost fifteen feet and hit his head.
The most recent was yesterday. I was meeting Mitch, Afui, and my girlfriend Natasha at exit one of the Gongguan MRT station. I got there right at 12:30, so of course I was the first one. It was raining, and I assumed that all the people standing under the eave were just waiting for the crosswalk. I looked around the crowd to make sure no one else had gotten there early.
I almost walked onto the man. He was lying on the sidewalk, parallel to the road. Probably some drunk, although it was a little early for that. Then there was an old woman looking nervous. Someone talking in a hushed, urgent voice on a cell phone. A car parked in the street with one door dangling open. A worried, balding man with a tie tack and white shirt soaked with blood, navy-blue pants and a black belt with a tacky octagonal fake-gold-and-black buckle-a company man, with the kind of helpless panic particular to Willy Loman types who repress all problems that can't be dealt with by the complaints department. There was blood on the ground, too, and a gaping wound on the forehead of the man on the ground, whose appearance completely escapes me now. His head was lolling a little as he lay there.
Public death is terrifying. I was able to walk right up to this man, entirely by accident. We expect death to be better-regulated than that. Maybe we even need it. He was unconscious, and when he breathed his stomach swelled and shrank as if he'd just finished a very long run. Little sounds were coming out of his mouth. What was going on inside this man's head? It felt obscene for all of us to be allowed to see this. Did he know we were here?
My first thought was to interfere. Had they moved him already? Did they know not to? Had they even called the paramedics. Somehow I didn't know how to say "paramedics" in Chinese-what if this person died because I didn't know how to say "paramedics"? What if someday I die because someone is unwilling to try to communicate the idea of paramedics in a foreign language?
I stood behind something a little ways away and called everyone. "Don't come to exit one, Mitch and Afui say to meet at exit two." "Don't come to exit one. Me and Natasha will be at exit two."
A woman walked by laughing about something on her cell phone. Two girls hurried past, away from the man with the head wound. Two more girls were talking about how they were late for something. I wandered back near the man. Why? I couldn't do anything. But had they called the paramedics? Sometimes everyone assumes that someone's already done that, so no one does. How long had he been here? Everyone knows you're not supposed to cluster around this kind of thing.
I thought about the people I'd seen walking away. If I were that man, how would I want people to walk away? How could people walk away from me in that position? Didn't they know I was dying? Dying-the last and worst thing that ever happens. How can they see me like this, unaware even of what's happening to me, and then go enjoy lunch with their friends? Don't they understand that things are different now?-that just because they're comfortable in their nice unsmashed bodies doesn't mean I am. How can they have so much while I have so little?
I left, because I was too self-conscious to stay, because you're not supposed to cluster around that kind of thing. On my left were people walking the other way, toward the man, who they might not notice if they went straight into the MRT. The ambulance passed on my right. Ten minutes later I could see its lights from across the street, still by the man. Down the road it was heavy traffic. I don't think the man lived. No one pulls over for an ambulance here. Half an hour later, while I was eating curry with Natasha, Mitch, and Afui, I tried to think of why I wasn't feeling very conversational, and decided I must have gone to bed too late the night before.