Cars are ubiquitous things.

I read in the paper on Sunday that a man had driven his car off the second floor of a car park in Haymarket, Sydney. To his death. In reverse.

Personally a car park has never been an attractive place for me to play soccer or have a BBQ. I don’t take my kid to a car park for a picnic, but there you go.

Haymarket is a place in Sydney that is synonymous with Chinatown. Being a belligerent racist when it comes to driving styles of those from Asian backgrounds, I automatically assumed it was an Asian behind the wheel.

(Note: I am only a racist on particular occasions and even then only for particular instances. Call me ‘a situational racist’. Say, for instance: I like to slag off Lebs with my mates on a Saturday, but of my views were challenged by a pack of Middle Eastern men in their territory, I would have no problem whatsoever, thus I would let the situation overcome my racism.)

Or, being a Sunday, I assumed it was a ‘weekend driver’.

Or, being a stubborn nark when it comes to generalisations, a drug courier who had met up with his drug lords (Asians as well) and finally admitted that he wouldn’t have their money for another day, and, in a fit of desperation, jumped into his Hyundai (stupid Asian clap trap car) and drove himself desperately over the edge in a manner that a bad debt could never imagine.

I was wrong on three counts, and blindingly so- what more can be expected of a bad racist researcher who has admitted to being intimate with the criminals of downtown Sydney?

It was an old man. I have seen them before. They take five goes to back into car spaces designed for trucks. His wife was directing him. ‘Manslaughter or homicide?’ I first thought, but perhaps ‘innocent mistake’ on the part of the wife was more like it.

I thought, poor man.

But of course my sympathy would only be evident if he was white. Being a supporter of the Howard government I am a distinct fascist and believe that only those of Aryan distraction would be worth grieving over. If it was a Leb then I would have been thankful, as you know, that’s the general Australian attitude. If it was an Asian (being selective) it would have meant one less bad driver on the road.

If he was a Muslim Leb who had migrated from Shanghai then I would have bloody well won the lottery, wouldn’t I?

I thought, poor man.

You have mistaken the accelerator for the brake, an action I am not immune to, particularly when it comes to any form of drug, social and anti social, and especially when I am high on conversation and argument and pretending not to be a spiritual advocate for communalism.

He reversed over the concrete slab, broke the fence and crashed bottom first onto a picnic chair below. Luckily for his wife, in regards to the questions of charges, there was no one eating lunch below. They were probably too busy ordering Yum Cha from bad drivers in a restaurant up the road.

Bloody ‘weekend’ diners. Steak and onion all week then they feign culture on a Sunday and ask for shark fin soup from those who turn blind spots into a friggin' celebration of everything auto.

I think I felt pity for the wife.

I can imagine, with what little imagination is left in me (as being a belligerent man, and a man at that, I prefer the enigma and indicia of reality)… I can imagine…

…  a blue haired puckered duck sucking back in fright as she stood over the ledge, looking down at the steaming wreck and muttering:
‘… That’s for the hours of cooking you owe me, Jack… and for voting Labour, prick!’

I can’t imagine her being sorry or upset, though, in all reality, this was probably the case. Maybe, living in Sydney, I have grown immune to love- such a cold place.

The reason why I tell this story is that I walked past the site of this man’s death quite innocently on Monday morning. It was taped off with emergency tape, the barrier still violently slung across the broken slats of the chairs where nobody was sitting.

The rear-view mirror sitting amongs and shards of glass.

And dirt where blood and petrol may have intermingled as if the dinosaurs’ foetus fluid was returning to the heart of homo sapien.

And I thought,

Cars are ubiquitous things.

And I wondered what notion I associate with such infamy and I thought, death.

Cars cause so much death.

The automobile, that great invention for the person who likes to drive…

should be feared more than sharks.

should be admonished more than Manson.

should be used as selectively as bad crack.

should be revered only for the things which it makes better, like beach holidays.

should be kept on a leash tighter than any of those used by a female Scorpio in a purple dress when maintaining relations with her boyfriend.

There should be mass vaccinations for petrol heads around the globe before the virus mutates and manages to spread to people who actually like walking and riding bikes and breathing air.

A car killed this man. A car killed my dog. A car injured my childhood friend. A car broke the back of my favourite dancer. A car drove into the ditch that decapitated my drug buddy. A car was incinerated in Baghdad.

And then I thought, I get it!

At such a time in man’s evolutionary history, a car bomb is really a great way to go.

And then I thought:

I finally understand the conflict in Iraq.

It is not about oil, sovereignty, belligerent racism, or even securing more sand for Sydney’s beaches (though I am positive that is the optimum reason).

The goal of the present war is to blow up cars for good.

On this proposition, I cannot help but heartily agree.