Collision, Guadalajara

It’s early morning and night-time has almost faded from the sky. The clouds are fluffy pink candy-floss and the narrow streets are quiet as I walk to the tram. Then comes the sound of two heavy objects hitting together. It’s deafening. A loud metallic scrape follows. Then screams.

A couple of blocks up the road, in the middle of a junction surrounded by colourful but crumbling houses, two cars sit in the road at weird angles. My step quickens.

When I reach them I find the driver’s side of one car is all smashed metal and broken glass. The windscreen has a huge crack across it. A middle-aged man sits behind the wheel, staring straight ahead.

The other car’s passenger side is torn away and lies in the road — a concertinaed strip of white metal and black plastic. Through a gap between the vehicles I can see a body lying on the pavement — a woman dressed in dark trousers and a blue t-shirt. Her legs twitch. Another woman crouches next to her, crying, howling into a mobile phone, her hands covered in blood.

Sportsweared medicina dealers, already set up for a day’s work on their corners, appear from the surrounding streets. Front doors open and people come out to have a look. A crowd gathers. A few people rush to help, while others photograph the scene with their mobile phones. The woman on the ground carries on twitching. The woman with blood on her hands continues to scream at whoever she’s calling. The driver of the first car stays staring out of his windscreen. I ask a few people if they know what happened, but no one will admit to seeing anything.

A bulky police pick-up truck fills the street with flashing lights and whining sirens, and the crowd fades away. It seems no one wants to be here now the law has arrived. Plus there is medicina to sell, jobs to go to, children to get to school. I follow them, and after a few steps realise I’m shaking. I try to distract myself by wondering if I have enough money for a coffee before getting the tram. Images of the woman’s twitching legs play in my head as I dig in my pockets for pesos.