White Man Dead

A man ran up to he window of the taxi and called in "White man dead." It was then that it hit me that I wasn't in Australia any more.

We had seen the police car blocking most of the road, cars slowly making their ways around, and the crowd of people all gathered. I was wondering what might have happened when we cleared the police car and there was a four wheel drive and a motorbike lying on the road beside it. That was when the man came over to the window. I could see someone, presumably the driver of the four wheel drive, sitting on the ground looking distraught and in shock.

Half hidden behind people, I could see a body, eagle-spread on the ground with blood oozing from a wound in his head. It looked like his legs were broken as well. The windscreen on the four-by-four was smashed and covered in blood. Poor guy, must of died on impact.

The taxi driver drove on, taking us back to our hotel. I wondered if this was an every day occurrence for him to see. I felt sick from he sight and badly needed a fresh breeze on my face. I went to the bar and bought a beer and proceeded out onto the little patio outside where you could see the beach and watch the sunset.

It was only early afternoon and there were a few stragglers finishing off their lunch. There were a few children swimming and snorkeling around in the ocean and a small yacht out sailing on the horizon. This was the reason I came to Vanuatu. The sun, the water, the reef. The fake tourist stuff that everybody comes to see. I didn't want to know about people dying and seeing bodies on the roadside.

I felt a tap on my shoulder which roused me from my musings. I twas just one of my friends letting me know that we were going to go out to a club tonight. I wasn't much of a clubber but I'd go along and drink because I just couldn't get the image of that cadaver out of my head.

We went out but that is about as much of the night as I remember, except for throwing up in a garden. I felt so terrible when I woke up around lunch time the next day. No one had any idea how much I had to drink. My head hurt and all noises sent spears of pain through it, making everything worse. I stayed in bed for the rest of the day.

That night, my dreams were covered in blood. It had been me who killed the man. I had been driving the four wheel drive. The body flew forward into my windscreen, smashing it, and flew over the car, limbs flailing limply. I woke in a cold sweat, sheets thrown on the ground next to me. I walked over to the small mirror above the basin in the bathroom and looked at myself. There was stubble covering my chin and my hair was a mess. I stared into my eyes. They stared back from the mirror, haunting and dead. The dream was wrong. I wasn't the one driving the four wheel drive. I was the guy on the motorbike.

I was the white man that was dead.