feeling listless

Life Apologies if the following isn't entirely coherent. I was in a road traffic accident today. Actually, no, more accurately I was almost the witness to a hit and run with part of the debris, the motorcycle in fact, knocking me over. I'd been to Lark Lane to buy a paper and some fish & chips. The shop was closed to we decided I'd jump a taxi to The New Chippery on Smithdown Road. So I waited and waited on the little car park at the back entrance to Sefton Park, keeping my eye towards a roundabout in case any were coming in my direction.

So the first thing I heard was the sound, a massive, loud boom of a noise which made me jump. Then a screech. Then I saw the remains of a motorbike, the chassis, crashing towards me on the road. I tried to step out of the way, but it was too fast and hit me in the bottom of my legs. I fell forward over it. I was shaking but looked up to see people dashing over the rider, flat out on the road opposite. I stood up and ran over too, reaching into my pocket to get out a mobile phone before being told by someone that they were already calling. The various people who'd seen it were the kind of cross section you see in disaster films, young and old.

A police car arrived and took details of those witnesses. We waited for the ambulance. As the victim lay on the floor, a medical student (missing a lecture on varicose vaines, stayed with the victim and chatted to him, keeping him awake. I was eventually checked out by the ambulance crew who said that since I was on my feet I could go home but that I should walk-in to a walk-in centre if I felt like I needed to later.

Watching the two officers, who'd stopped on their way to a more routine job, I admired how tolerant they were being as random people, who'd seen nothing and were just passing by kept stopping to ask what happen. People in cars wanting to get past driving over the debris and crime scene. A man wondering when it would all be cleared up so he could park his car. Idiot.

When I returned home having finally been to the chippery, I was phoned by the Traffic Police for a brief statement and they say they'll ask for something more formal in the next couple of weeks. All I could tell him is what I've already said here. Despite being in the middle of it all, literally and predictably, I didn't see a thing. Anything I do know about the vehicle that hit the bike is supposition and information I got after the fact from witnesses desperate to tell their story. All I really do know is that I was lucky, oh so very lucky. If the bike had been moving faster, if I'd been standing a few feet forward, if I'd not been wearing my toe-tectors, it could have been a lot more serious.

Looking at the rider lying on the road waiting for the ambulance complaining about his back aching, I know how serious it could have been.