I almost got run over by the CEO of my company this morning. I couldn’t hear the smooth motor of his Bentley over the top of Football Weekly and he had to swerve to avoid me.
It was almost as bad as the time when, as an eight year old, I almost got run over by the road safety man. I was rushing to get to school and didn’t see his car coming out of a side steet. He slammed on the brakes, I stared at him like a deer in a Hollywood movie that gambols in front of the protagonist’s car. Realising that the error was mine, I quickly scurried away, relieved to have avoid a confrontation.
The enormity of my crime only came apparent when I went in for a special assembly on road safety and saw this man. Oh how I squirmed! Every sensible message about stopping, looking both ways, and listening for oncoming traffic was directed towards me.
Retrospectively, he probably felt pretty bad as well. Imagine if he had killed someone on the way to delivering a lecture on road safety. He would probably have died of irony poisoning.
Of course, speaking so blithely about road safety is a dangerous thing. You never know when it might happen to you, so common are such accidents. Indeed, I have one ex-girlfriend who was killed on her bike by a callous and careless driver. It is such a terrible waste.
There was also a friend of a friend who was killed by a motorbike whilst crossing the road. His life has subsequently been memorialised in concerts, comics and CDs. It makes you wonder whether you’ll be remembered in any way (an indulgent thought if ever there was one) and if you can control what people do or say. You can see how controlling your legacy might become a consuming affair — excising all the things you don’t like, worrying about posterity whenever you publish anything — what a terrible way to live.
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