Death on a pavement

After weeks of persistent rain, I woke up to a beautiful October morning, warm and rich with the smell of lavender and jasmine. It was the kind of morning when you can’t wait to jump out of bed and conquer the day. Which is just what I did – and soon we were on our way to church to be refreshed and revived with the Promise of the future.

On the way back home I commented on how everyone seemed to be in such a rush for a relaxing Sunday morning.

I saw something that I wanted to take a photo of for Reporter and we turned back. After taking the photo, we noticed an ambulance following us slowly, with no siren, just the lights flashing, causing that queer sensation I always get when I see ambulance lights. It didn’t make much effort to go past us and when we turned into our driveway it continued on to where I then noticed a fire-truck a few houses down the road. I asked my husband to continue on, as perhaps there was a story for me.

Indeed, there was a story, but I chose not to get out of the car. There were two bodies zipped into blue bags and one wrapped in foil, which is usually done when a patient is in severe shock. A few distraught faces surrounded the bodies whilst they were being loaded into the ambulance. I understood why the ambulance was not in such a rush – it was already too late for them to save those people.

I couldn’t get myself to get out of the car and harass those people that have just experienced such tragedy. I don’t know what happened, but living in South Africa I guess it was just another Sunday and it was just that family’s turn to be robbed or hijacked. For those poor mourners it marks the loss of three loved ones, for the robbers it marks victory. They gained materially – a car, a cell phone or two, maybe a television.

Telling my family about what I saw, the response was a simple “Really? Shame.” - as they went about doing what they were busy with. Just last night we observed how there used to be 1 tragic story on the news perhaps every month when things were bad. Now, if we are lucky there are only 4…

Someone will report the story that I chose not to and get paid the money that I so desperately need. I could not walk up to those sad, shocked and distraught people and prey on their misery.