An Aweful Foreboding

Before moving to Korea, I lived in Japan. Here is an account of a rather freaky thing that happened to me, or rather that I was the unfortunate observant of, while I was living there.

In the city I lived in, outside of my school building one day, I saw a policeman throwing a bucket of water onto the streetside curb. Curious, I walked over to see what he was doing. Turns out he was washing blood off of the street; obviously there had been some sort of accident. A bit gruesome.

A week or so later I was walking down the sidewalk that bordered a shopping mall in my neighborhood (same city) when I came across a policeman yelling at a parked motorist. The driver of the vehicle stood silently, perhaps because his vehicle had blood on the front bumper. He had hit someone. Freaked me out a bit.

I told my Japanese friend about these events, and I remember what she said: "Things always come in 3's". I didn't take it seriously at the time, but I do remember that she didn't say it flippantly, but rather with a sense of foreboding, and perhaps a touch of pity.

A week or so later I was walking down a narrow side street when I saw a high school boy on a bicycle. He rode past me and into a blind intersection. He didn't look at the mirrors and didn't check for oncoming cars. Just when he reached the middle of the intersection, and when I happened to be looking directly at him, a car coming from the other direction broadsided him, lifted him into the windshield (which caved in) and bounced him off. That took both the car and the boy out of my view.

I ran ahead to see if I could help. There was nothing I could do. The boy lay broken, cracked; I knelt beside him but was afraid to touch him.

There was nothing I could do.

I waited until the police and the ambulance came, but the police were more interested in taking measurements than they were in hearing an eyewitness account from a foreigner.

I did not sleep for a while after seeing that accident.

Things come in 3's.

I hope to never hear that in the same context again.