slow down please

This morning Nadia heard a long skidding noise and then a huge bang. There had been an accident at the top of our street on the highway. Curious which way traffic would be blocked, we walked the 100 metres or so to the lights. The crumpled shell of a car sat squat and smoking across the road, its roof violently dislodged and scattered in pieces over 50 metres. The driver could only have been dead.

There is no place, surely, that we need to be going so fast or so carelessly towards that the few seconds saved will matter. Not even heaven.

Slow down and think about what's happening around you. Remember the heart that beats in your body and the blood that runs with such delicate fragility through your veins. Who are you leaving behind and what have you left undone?

cracked like a metal egg,
the car is silent in the still air.
elsewhere
grief is unravelling.