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Fiddlesticks, Rhubarb & Traffic Jam
Posted: Tuesday, May 25, 2010 by LePhilozophe in Labels: bingo night, chimps, elephants, hearse, mortality, the unknown
i was stuck in traffic this morning. Big deal, you vacuumed the cat and fed the carpet as usual, you might say. And yes, it might very well have been the usual garden variety, rigmarole morning everyone else and their dog experiences of hair-raising stunts and near-misses only ever witnessed at a fender bender race track, coupled with the customary language so richly dense of slander and motherless profanity of the variety only ever heard at Drinks & Bingo Night at the local senior citizens rec club - had it not been for the fact that i was stuck in traffic this morning behind a hearse.
There's something about the presence of a jolting reminder to our finite-ness (if that word didn't exist, it does now) that transforms the earth citizen. Throughout our varied species, our behavioural change regarding mortality goes according to our beliefs and customs; but change it does, nonetheless. An elephant will stand over the body of a dead loved one, gently rocking back and forth as the other elephants in the herd caress the mourner with their trunks.Chimps will hold deathbed vigils, and mark the moment of passing with a cacophony of screams and wails, or alternatively a deathly silence (pun in no way intended) depending on the deceased's mode of passage into the unknown.
This morning i witnessed the usual seething mass of horns, screeches, engine revs, fist shaking and livid vocabulary of a morning rush hour traffic jam effectively reduce itself to a deathly silent (pun by all means intended) , makeshift funeral procession. Whether it was in a show of respect or acknowledgment of the close proximity of the aforementioned jolting reminder or indeed in fact both, i'll never know, but the effect was certainly tangible. Call it fiddlesticks and rhubarb, but there are only so many other ways you can try and explain a silent traffic jam. And none are very convincing.
The entire scene may have lasted all of 5 minutes-a fleeting moment in the context of a busy working day- but as the hearse turned into another road and went on its way- while behind it the bustle and noise of traffic resumed just as suddenly as it had stopped- you got the sense that everyone that had been a part of that makeshift procession, all protagonists of an unscripted play,was left with the same profound and unspoken, yet unexplainable resolve.
That we were going to make something of the time we had left.
Great post. I agree, in western cultures we still haven't got the hang of this dying and mourning malarkey. There isn't an instruction book of what we are suposed to do.
As a child, it was a custom for all the shops to draw down shutters and everyone in the street would turn and face the hearse and bow. That doesn't seem to happen now.
A few weeks ago I had my own hearse incident.
I was driving on a duel carriageway thinking about something other than driving, when I noticed the right hand lane was empty (remember we drive on the left in the UK) so I pulled out, and put my foot down. Had the roof down and loud music on... something like Bon Jovi - then I saw the hearse and the 3 funeral cars in the left hand lane. I couldn't get back in the left lane as it was jammed nose to tail. Choices, put my foot down and speed off mouthing a 'sorry' or carry on in a red convertible riding wing... I could see in my mirror all these disapproving faces and the mourners were all looking across and glaring. With the roof down I was so exposed - so put my foot down and sped off... and didn't look in my mirror! The Hearse police haven't turned up as yet..