| - Killer Cars (Mogadon Version)
Well I'm back from my
extended xanga vacation. Yea, I'm home sick right now, not real sick,
just a slight cold...I kind of didn't feel like going to school today
even though it's a Friday and there's no teacher I'm trying to
avoid....well...ok....nevermind
It's been awhile and I think it's safe
to say that my life has changed drastically in the time I was gone.
Most of the past month has felt too unreal, too fake, nothing like the
life I'm used to. I seriously felt like I was on a cloud or in the
background, like when you dream and things happen, or things you do in
your dream that you have no control over but just thoughts, like an
outsider watching into your life, like "Oh, I'm in Connie's
basement...watching Mr. Loughran finger-fence Denzel
Washington.....weird, but interesting."
Of course the obvious one being
the last week of March, when we all found out about the car accident.
For the longest time I showed no emotion, in a way I felt kind of
guilty, my classmates around me breaking down, sad looks on their
faces, while I had this blank stare going, or it felt like it. It
wasn't until I had to see Josh myself, in the hospital did I start to
truly realize that one of my best friends was laying down with tubes
inserted into his mouth and head, the exhausted depressed look on his
parents faces, it hit me hard that this wasn¡¦t a dream at all. And at
Steve's wake, it was the first time I really came face to face with a
nonliving person. There are no words to describe my feelings that
afternoon. And how two days after I turned 18, that I drove over to
Mundy's house Friday night after spending a day visiting Umaryland,
eager to see familiar faces again, that the first thing Peter says to
me when he answers the door is, "Josh died." I gotta say, of all the
things to say in the world, I was totally unprepared for that. I just
even more emotionless than before, maybe cause of what a few others
have mentioned, that Josh died "twice" that this time we were prepared
for it.....maybe not...idk?, I didn't go taking a walk alone and sit
alone in the middle of the night on a playground to think like I did
when we were misinformed the first time, but there's no question that
was an eerie night, when I left Mundys to go home, there was the most
dense fog I had ever seen in my life, having only 10-15 feet frontal
visibility......maybe even a sign of Josh's passing.
My memories of Josh started when we would play tennis pretty often at Shrewsbury
racket club, or when we met in the early AM on weekends at the high
school playing doubles against the 50something asian dads, along with
the other guys, like jeff yang or yen. How when he first started
running with the team in early September, that I knew inside he'd reach
varsity immediately, how I was not surprised at all when he almost
broke 19minutes his first time on the 5K course, after just 4 freaking
weeks of running with us. He was someone who you would remember when
you look back in the future, someone who you could see each day and
expect the usual fun personality of Josh and how he'd act, all
the things he would randomly invent: the wooden baton he'd carry,
the different slogans he made for the Del shirts, "LISTEN TO CAPTAIN
TERRY", "YAY WOOOO! STRETCHING!", that it would be a sign of the
normal................and now he is gone.
This past Wednesday was Josh's funeral. I had been to one funeral before, my grandfather in Taiwan,
but I was too young to realize the whole scope of it, having no memory
of ever meeting him either (which I did apparently..?). I started to
cry, like everyone. I wanted to lady to stop the fucking singing cause
it would just make me cry more, but at the same time I didn¡¦t want her
to stop too, if that could ever make sense. When Mrs. Mooney went up
with her husband, and made her speech about Josh. It made me truly
think about the randomness of life. How someone like Josh Mooney, who
impressed me with his attitude, his enthusiastic outlook, how I had
never seen him negative, and if he was anything close to negative, he
made it a positive, how you could never imagine anything bad happening
to him, and I wondered how life could take him away from us, from the
world, the world needs people like Josh. I need people like Josh, he
always always always brought me up when I was down, and I can be pretty
damn down sometimes too. Shit, even if I was up, he'd bring me even
higher.
Yet
when I think about it, how does life continue normally? Feels kind of
guilty doesn¡¦t it, maybe?, and I think, all those deaths I read about
in the newspaper each day, how each one can be like this. How things
like this happen everyday, with friends and family going through this
unbearable pain. In many ways, I still feel it's a dream, that I just
lost one of my best friends. But then I see his parents, and I remember
how she was back when I was in 8th grade, when I would always see her
around the courts, that smile on her face and how proud she was of Josh
(sometimes we'd screw around and he'd still randomly make shots
that many guys couldn¡¦t make if they tried), and reality comes back to
kick me in the nuts.
There's really nothing we
can do now but to accept what life throws at us, whatever or however
painful it is..........and as overwhelmingly demonstrated, everyone
showed so much support for others, I¡¦m still a bit astonished at how
our community came together, how the days and weeks following, people
supported one another constantly, how some sort of bond had formed
between everyone.
My dad used to (well, still
does) regularly emphasize safety to me while we were driving sometime
late last year, he would often warn "you guys are lucky no one has been
seriously hurt yet", and each time I would listen but think, yes
that¡¦s quite true but that¡¦s going to be unlikely. You never really
think things like that could really happen until it actually does...
So to all present and future
drivers out there, be fucking careful when you're out there, it
definitely does feel like nothing can hurt you, that you¡¦re sitting in
that steel fortified little chamber of yours, but you¡¦re not and it
will be too late when you find out for yourself. The danger is out
there, just waiting....waiting for that spilled drink, that track you
cant find on your favorite CD, your friend next to you at the red light
that you want to race, that playlist on your ipod that you have to
scroll all the way down to find, or of course, drunk driving. As for
ridiculous speeding....those 5 minutes saved isn't worth yours or
anyone else's whole life. Fortunately, I haven¡¦t found myself in any
of these situations and hopefully never will (knock on wood.....a lot).
Ok I guess you guys have all
heard that 9987x times but my point is, each time you get behind that
wheel, think of Steve and Josh, and while I'm not totally familiar with
what led to their accident, all I'm saying is don¡¦t fuck around in a
car, it took away two of my classmates.
This concludes my entry.
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