I watched a man die tonight.

That’s not true. The heart attack may have killed him while he was on the road, the impact may have killed him when he took out one of our gas pumps. Or maybe he died waiting for emergency services. It only took them two minutes to show up, but I don’t know how to judge. When is someone truly dead? When they stop breathing? When their heart stops? When their brain stops? We can bring people back from so much – does someone only truly die when they’ve passed the point of no return?

I’m not smart enough to answer those questions. I do know that emergency services worked on him for twenty minutes before they gave up. From what I could see, they did everything they could. To be honest, I wasn’t paying that much attention. I spent my time throwing cat litter to prevent gasoline runoff from reaching the sewer and coordinating with the first firefighters on scene to ensure isolation of hazardous materials. I knew I was neither needed nor welcomed in the saving of that man’s life. I had nothing to offer.

The lights of cop cars and fire trucks made the whole scene insanely surreal. Watching the man’s lower stomach thrust in and out as paramedics tried to keep that body going… it felt like a scene from a poorly-written movie. Unbelievable. The critic in me wanted to cry out at the lack of emotion, the poor framing – that it was just too far-fetched for the audience’s suspension of disbelief. What were the writers thinking? It was absurd. But it was also the end of a man’s life.

And then my District Leader showed up and took control. This wasn’t his first rodeo. As inconsequential as I had been in the initial incident, I was suddenly needed even less. So I went back inside.

We closed for the night, of course we did. But there were things that had to be done before the store could open in the morning. And those were the things we did. In between the shaking legs and inappropriate, desperate laughter, we did the dishes and stocked the shelves until we could finally leave. Turns out, that’s the thing about being a closer. Sometimes you watch a man die, and then head back to work.

Once we left, I felt hollow.

Life always ends in death. Sometimes behind the wheel of an SUV. We should count ourselves lucky that no one was fueling up at that pump, that even on an extremely busy night no one was in that part of the parking lot. That the engine never smoldered. As my roommate said to a coworker, we can try to take solace in the fact that a tragedy didn’t turn into a catastrophe. There was no one to blame.

But being the first coworker on the scene, looking through the window at a non-responsive, unbreathing victim, trying to open a locked door… you can’t logic yourself out of the guilt of not doing more. I should’ve broken the window. I should’ve dragged him out. Maybe starting CPR, even a poor, uneducated man’s version, maybe starting CPR one minute earlier could’ve kept him around. Maybe the four seconds I wasted trying to find the emergency shutoff valve for the gas pumps were the four seconds we needed to save him. Maybe, maybe maybe…

And afterwards, the comedown. The crash. The adrenaline shutoff out of nowhere with the shaking legs and the tears hiding behind every breath – the nervous farts, the feeling of fever. All of it. The ugly truth of passing through a crisis. Not how Hollywood movies or pretty stories in leather-bound books make it seem. A visceral reality of bullshit. Knowing that I’m handling it better than my coworkers, feeling guilty that I’ve seen people die before and still have this reaction when I ought to be helping people who have so much less experience in this…

The real world is brutal. And unexpected. Real tragedy is only tragedy because it doesn’t happen through the lens of art. It occurs when it does, convenient or not. No warning, no reason. Anywhere. Any time.

The most you can hope for is to be surrounded by people who are at their best when life is at its worst. I couldn’t have asked for better people around me tonight. From my coworkers to witnesses on scene to the emergency services, everyone brought their A game. But that man still died. Because it turns out no matter how well you respond to a crisis, the ending isn’t always happy.

Now, sitting at home in front of the computer, I just feel broken. The world seems surreal, an imagined place. It could be a dream, for all I know. Being with people didn’t feel right, but neither did being alone. Drinking didn’t feel right, but neither did sobriety. A walk didn’t help. Sitting didn’t help. Trying to sleep was an exercise in futility. What can I do? What could I do? Would it have mattered if I had?

In the scope of things it really wasn’t so bad. Actually, compared to a lot of things it was pretty mild. But logic isn’t helping me with the image of that man slumped in his car, dentures halfway out of his mouth. Chest still. Car door locked.

I’ll get past it. In a few days I’ll be completely fine. But for now I’ll lay awake staring at the specter of inevitability that dances across my ceiling.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Life is fragile. Any unexpected breath of wind can snuff the light of single candle. Everyone should know CPR. You never know when a friend or stranger might need help sticking around for a little bit longer.