Getaway Car

The Great Escape

TIN

Death wasn't an option. It never had been. No one chose to die. Even people who committed suicide didn't choose to die. They were forced to. By people around them. Their friends, their family, strangers, people they love or loved.

"If a car was coming to you at full speed, would you move?"

A question I had been asking myself for some time now. It first occurred to me during one of my Ethics classes while I tried to keep my eyes open as my Professor droned on and on, spattering lectures about John Stuart Mill and his principle of happiness. Then at night when my insomniac mind wandered to all things I could think of, about some random set of numbers popping out my head like the credit part in a movie ending, or about how tardigrades could survive extreme conditions—even exposure to the cold vacuum of outer space—and their DNA could withstand a battering by X-ray radiation.

Every time, I would have a different answer to that question. The first time I thought about it, my answer was yes, because who in their right mind wouldn't move, right?

That question appeared to me once more during a dinner with my family after that incident as I heard words ran over one another in monotone gray from my parents. They liked to call it an incident, but it wasn't. It was a planned set-up, I knew. Then I thought about it harder, would I really move if I was put in that situation? And my answer changed. I wouldn't move.

What would it feel to be hit by a fast moving car? Would it hurt for long or would it be like one of those moments when you felt things for a second and none the next? I tried looking it up on the internet, and believe me when I said, it wasn't the nicest thing to be interested of. Someone even described it as like diving in a lake while doing flips—you wouldn't know which way was up until everything stopped and saw light again. Every movement during that flip felt like a punch. Maybe it was just an exaggeration. A punch wasn't really painful. But then, we all have different levels of pain tolerance, so I couldn't really tell.

I asked myself the same question now as I stood on the side of a steel bridge, hands against the cold railing. Like a normal human being with a fully functional mind, my answer turned back to yes.

I looked down my Clifton sneakers and grimaced when a dark stain caught my eyes, I didn't notice it when I chose this shoes earlier. I must've gotten it when I strolled to the football field after our last class for this semester. How the stain stood out against the whiteness reminded me of that time I felt like one. One look and one could spot the stain. Being in the spotlight wasn't quite a nice thing to experience, so to speak. Take it from someone who'd gotten in the headlines for being a "drug addict." It made me wonder how celebrities could handle that kind of lifestyle, and even enjoyed at some point.