Don't go over there...

Driving along the Wakehurst Parkway this morning, enjoying the clear crisp day I was flung back through time to a night long ago. I had been driving in the other direction through the night when I saw smoke bounding up through the headlights before me. I thought it was a fire at first, but as I got closer I realised there had been an accident. The streams of light silhouetting the scene were casting in odd directions as the cars had spun across the road. I pulled over into the gravel and parked my car. I hesitated before getting out, but when the man before me leaped out of his car and ran to the victims, leaving his door ajar, I swallowed my fear and opened my door.

The car closest to me was on the other side of the road, facing the bushland at an angle. The woman in the seat was grey faced and sweating. Her skin looked as though it was made of plasticine. She didn't look at me. She was looking through the windscreen. She asked me who she was, where she was going. I asked her the same questions. Her eyes darted as though taking in the scene but she seemed to be a long way away. "What happened?" she asked, over and over again.

Her leg was trapped beneath the steering wheel. A deep, bloodless gash decorated her knee. I stared at it, mindless. The man who had hurried to help came running back from the other vehicle. Parallel to the woman's car but about 30 metres away. It seemed as though they had caught the front panel of the drivers side. A momentary lapse of concentration, a slight loss of consciousness. Perhaps adjusting the radio or maybe a sneeze. A Saturday night meant there may have been wine involved, the hour meant exhaustion was likely.

"Don't go over there," the man panted when he reached me, "that man is dying."

I looked at him. That man is dying.

The fire brigade arrived and the police asked my name. I stayed with the woman, trying to keep her awake. Numb to the events I left when they told me I could. Drove past the mess, tyres crunching over broken glass, heading for home.

The police called a few days later for a statement. I couldn't tell them anything that was useful. The man had died. His wife had watched. Somewhere in their 60's their life together was over. I hung up the phone and did the laundry.

Today, years and years later, I cried for that man. A beautiful, sunny Autumn day, safe and content, I wept for the man who lost his life in the dark on Wakehurst Parkway.