Death takes a holiday, episode 3

Ok, once I got back home, urban life, in all its uproarious complexity, resumed . . . And I experienced my third (that I know of) brush with death, the other two being the time I jumped across the train tracks, and the time I got hit by a car. This time I was walking towards the Acorn pre-school, engrossed in my thoughts, when I heard five pops! Unmistakably gun-shots, close by. Looking up (because when engrossed in my thoughts, I tend to look down) I saw four young men, teenagers, running toward me and laughing mischievously. One of them was carrying a gun!

In a matter of seconds, the following monologue ran through my mind:
"ohmigod, these kids have a gun! but they're laughing! plus, they have already shot the gun, so I must be safe! They won't shoot me. WAIT, what about those school shootings! These guys might shoot me just for fun!!!! Quick! Duck down the alley! Should I hide behind this pillar? Or might they come down the alley after me???? Best to keep running! Hey you, guy-walking-up-the-alley!!!! Go back!!!!"

I ran into the school, and told everyone to stay inside, keep the kids inside, and call the police. After a minute or two, while the largely Chinese-speaking staff tried to find someone who could understand panting, sweating, hysterical English-speaking me, this was done. A little while later, I went home with Leilei. That night I saw a brief news report on the shooting (one guy was shot, one bus window hit). Life went on.

I was struck by the fact that every time I've had one of these brushes with death, I've had the same immediate thoughtlet--not verbal, too instantaneous to be a real thought, but it is something like, "I'm going to die, for a stupid reason." In the first case, I almost died because I HAD to get a newspaper before the train arrived (necessitating my leaping across the tracks, buying it, then leaping back again as the train pulled in); in the second case, because a car and I were playing a sort of chicken as I crossed the street, and he rounded the corner; in this latest case, because I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. So the part of death I object to, I guess, is the randomness of it, the banality of it--which leads to the question: is there any non-stupid reason for death? To be continued . . . if I'm ever in a philosophical mood.