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a day for car crashes

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 1999.10.25

I witnessed a car crash on Yonge Street today. A Pontiac shitbox rear-ended a Contour. The former seemed to notice the stopped cars in front of it only three meters away. I happened to be looking in that direction while I was averting my eyes from the gaze of a passing street crazy.

On the way back from Richmond Hills, where Sara traded in Alice for a New Beetle (we're calling her Miranda), we noticed a car wrapped around a tree on an island in the Queensway. There were two cop cars on site, and two pedestrians leaving the site heading north on Parkside. The male half thereof checking back over his shoulder, looking pissed off. The cops were closing in on the pedestrians as we lost sight of the affair. On the way up Parkside, we saw several cop cars and two ambulances. Then we saw two tow trucks racing down Parkside. As we waited at the light, the tow truck that was second in line coming the other way pulled out into our lane, and passed the first truck - through a red light.

rand()m quote

Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

—Abraham Lincoln