9-1-1 (2025)
​animated gif, 35mm color negative film
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Last night there was a head-on car crash in front of my apartment, the smash was so loud I heard it from my kitchen.
I went out onto my balcony, lit a cigarette, and watched the scene unfold. Cop cars, fire trucks, ambulances, and a crowd of curious onlookers started to form.
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I put on my coat and went out to get a street-side view of the action. It was like a movie set, except it wasn’t, but to me it was.
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An SUV had smashed head-on into a small sports car. The front end was completely destroyed. I couldn’t see much, but there were two people in the sports car, a man and a young woman, a couple most likely.
In this moment, a movie scene flashed through my mind.
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The young woman, is someone I know. She is trapped inside the car and is hysterical. Our eyes meet and she begins to pound on the passenger-side window with both hands frantically. Our eyes are locked. She is screaming HELP HELP HELP, but I can’t hear her; I see her mouthing the words. I look past her. The man, her lover, is dead. His face is buried in the crumpled dashboard. The airbag didn’t go off because there was no airbag; the car is a 1981 Porsche 911 Turbo, beige colour, my favourite colour oddly. He wasn’t wearing his seatbelt, that’s why he ate the steering wheel and dash. He was drunk—she didn’t know. He was also high—she didn’t know that either.
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To her he was a normal guy, kind of boring but stable, she assumed. He had a real job and made six figures. He worked for a major bank. It’s what she’s always wanted: stability, security, and of course, money. She chose him over all the other men that fell for her because he was the right fit for her and her future, imagined family with him. An investment banker with a great salary in a high-pressure job surrounded by high-pressure people with double his salary. He would never think about doing cocaine and drinking excessively, needless to say, daily. He is a normal guy.
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Unlike her recent love interest, an artist, who has too much freedom, who laughs too much, is politically incorrect, has loose friends and is obsessed with creating instead of consuming — these are the troublesome red flags she does not want to see again in her life. She is a proper woman; she herself would never think of doing drugs on a Tuesday, like this day. Never. Yet, perhaps on a Friday, but only with her best friend and only in a nightclub surrounded by wealthy older men who may be married and have families, just as lovely as the family she one day wants. But these men are kind; they offer drinks, bottle service, and of course, always ask politely of the young women if they can do cocaine off their asses. But she would never ever oblige. She is a decent woman. He can kindly pepper her hand with kisses and he can do his bump of coke off her hand instead. He’s of course a decent, rich older man who would never harm her, or drug her, she only associates with decent people in decent places.
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She continues to pound on the glass, pleading for her life. The firemen are busy cutting off the door of the other car. The SUV is also heavily damaged.
Our eyes lock again. She wants me to save her, as if I, a simple artist type, will somehow suddenly become a superhero and make everything ok. The nightmare will be over if I just reach for the car door handle; maybe by miracle the door will swing open.
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Staring into her eyes still, I drag on my cigarette, exhale, and flick the smoke into the car door window watching her face flicker from the miniature fireworks the impact of the cigarette has made. I walk away. She stops pounding her hands against the glass.
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As I turn the corner half a block down, a gust of wind blows the still-burning cigarette butt into the leaking gasoline from the Porche 911. As the massive explosion resonates throughout the neighbourhood, I break the fourth wall, look directly into the camera with a shit-eating grin on my face, not because I'm evil and not because I have killed her, but because I know that I have saved her soul. She knows that she did not die a hypocrite, she died pure, devoted to her choice, next to the man she chose, a normal, boring but secure man, instead of some artist.
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