The Hungry Artist

Shortly after the accident, Susanna told Amanda, “I was praying right after it happened.” Amanda’s response was, “Aha.” Amanda hadn’t prayed because she hadn’t believed in God. She still doesn’t.

Rick didn’t have a chance to pray. This is what is assumed. He died instantly. His loved ones hope he died instantly so he wouldn’t suffer.

Amanda and Susanna suffered because they lived.

Sandra might have suffered.

Amanda still doesn’t know what really caused the accident. She has a hard time believing the police report, which quotes Ken as saying: “I fell asleep for a second.”

The accident occurred some time shortly after 9 in the morning.

Amanda’s car is the only one that collided with Ken’s on a freeway containing other moving vehicles.

Everything happens for a reason.

E = mc2.

An apple falls, not floats, from a tree.

You build it – It can fail.

It’s like this see. Material, moveable objects within the same atmosphere = encounters, collisions, explosions, implosions. Place a thinking human being in that same atmosphere and you have more of the same, and then some. Every motion, collision, explosion, implosion has a traceable cause. Man is the story.

Amanda does not express her spoken responses very well. She prefers the written word. “Just teaches you to enjoy the moment. Live. Really live, man.” To which she writes: We live somewhere between memory and fantasy. Never here. Never now. It only appears that one has lived here and now, after he has left his trace.

She still doesn’t know why she lived and why he died. She stopped asking why, taking the human out of the equation.

A 53-year old highway worker was struck dead this morning on the off-ramp of Highway 15. The first highway message board on Highway 15 reads: Safety Alert! WATCH OUT FOR HIGHWAY WORKERS.

Another message board half a mile down the highway reads: WATCH OUT FOR HIGHWAY WORKERS.

Watch out for highway workers.