We live in uncertain times, there is no doubt. I have no illusions of the reason people harm each other, but the yesterday I was witness to the death of another human being - in a manner of speaking.
I didn't see the event mind you, but I heard it. I was out in the garden, working on planting some ground roses when I heard what sounded like a very loud "Thud". Then there was a cry, though I realize now it was a scream, then another thud. At first I thought perhaps someone had nearly hit someone with a car, but nothing happened after it so I paid it no mind. There were no sirens, nothing. Still, there was an unsettling aura in the air that I didn't like.
I got in the car go get some lunch and as I left the market about five minutes later two police cars came whizzing by me with sirens blazing. By the time I got home, they had the block just above me roped off, and people were crowding around. I didn't go down to see what was going on, I know better than to crowd the work of police doing their job. I knew then something was very wrong though. A few hours later my parents called and told me what happened and I was shocked.
I don't know why I was shocked. Just because I live in a small town doesn't mean murders don't happen here. San Luis Obispo is a small town, and to be honest I in all the time I've lived here there have probably been many other cases like this. Things happen all the time at Cal Poly, I hear about them through word of mouth, but this was a personal experience.
I can't help but feel strangely guilty. I know I shouldn't I had no knowledge of the events unfolding in that house, the domestic dispute that lead to this. Still, one wonders after this, "could I have done something?" I secretly wish I could, maybe seen the man leaving his car with the gun, called the police. But I didn't. I don't know if anyone did.
In two minutes, a woman was alive, and then she was not. In a few more, a man was arrested, and now lies in jail. There, he will sit and wait for many years hereafter, most likely to die for his crimes. Its a strange circumstance, an unfortunate one. That he chose to kill another, and she died. That I was within a block of an act of violence, literally within earshot of death.
