Vita Brevis

There was a fatal accident involving a motorcyclist last night in close proximity to my house. The motorcyclist was lain out, covered with a standard issue police bodybag a mere metre or so from the bus stop right below my flat, his motorcycle lying on its side, forlornly, just ahead from him. I passed the scene as I made my way to buy myself dinner.

It was the usual tableau to be found in such situations - the scene of the accident, fronted by stationary police cars, sirens flashing but silent, a growing crowd thronging the sidewalk, though in this situation the onlookers were spared the discomfort of observing the next-of-kin carry out their private grieving on all too public a stage.

Staring, gawking crowds in such a situation, with their pointed fingers and equally pointed whispers (voices lowered in respect as befits a church or soon to be funeral) are easy targets for criticism. Why can't these people leave well alone, why must they be such kapos (busybodies)?

Personally, I believe that there is a powerful poignancy when, in the course of your everyday activity, you come across the reality of unexpected mortality. Joggers paused, disrupting their relentless pace, families stopped and stared. I even saw a motorcycle slow and come to a halt just beyond the fallen motorcycle, a salute of sorts to a fallen brethren.

Scenes like the above are an all too powerful reminder of our very own mortality, of the fact that vita brevis or life is short. In the middle ages, it was common for the rich and powerful to hang memento mori (literally reminder of mortality) paintings in their homes. These paintings would show riches and ostentatious food, but also always a skull (representing eventual death) and often a timepiece (representing the unceasing passage of time) and served as a reminder in Thomas Gray's famous words that:

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power
and all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
await alike the inevitable hour,
the paths of glory lead but to the grave.

And so we stop and we gawk and stare, unbidden. Not merely due to some innate morbidity but because in such a scene we are confronted with the possibility of the shortness of our own lives. Of course we do realise that we cannot live forever, but if we were to be honest we can hardly contemplate our own mortality. It is an absurdity to us, death is - both fascinating and repulsive at the same time.

But traffic accidents force us to contemplate, whether we wish it or not, the inherent transiency of life. It is the memento mori of the industrial age. A reminder that life is short.