cyborgs at the junction

Some things are hard to shift out of the head. Monday arvo I saw a guy knocked down by a taxi ... he survived what was in the scheme of things not that bad an accident; but still. I was idling third on the Bondi Junction rank when I saw him cross between the two cabs ahead of me. Youngish, chubby, non-descript clothes. Soon as I realised he wasn't getting into the point cab I lost interest, but did see him give a little skip in preparation for running across the road after the bus just then passing had gone by. Then, the bang. Looked up again, there he was, spread-eagled on the tar-seal, having apparently bounced off the side of a moving taxi the way people bounce off invisible force fields in the movies. Accidents in the aftermath are strange: you see things with great clarity but don't necessarily know what they mean. This fellow scrambled to his feet, went over to the passenger side window of the now stationary cab and, with hands together as if in prayer, bowed to the driver within. It was then I noticed that the wing mirror on that side of the car had been torn off and was lying next to the front wheel of the cab in front of mine. I climbed out and picked it up, just as the driver of the damaged cab, looking exasperated and ignoring the guy he hit, came out to retrieve it. Thinking about it afterwards, watching the guy massaging his upper arm and shoulder, I realised that the mirror must have hit him there with force strong enough to rip it from its mooring. Here's the strange thing: somehow my mind has transposed the mirror, broken off, glass still intact, trailing electrical wires, with the guy's arm. As if he were a cyborg and his arm some kind of bionic attachment. I mean when I close my eyes I see him holding his dun shoulder with wires protruding from the empty socket where his arm used to be. Waiting for the robot repair men to come and make him whole again.

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