The Running Man
Terrible things can make you laugh.
I mean it: truly horrible things, when they happen suddenly and are beyond your control, can make you burst out laughing before your conscious mind has even had time to process what’s happened and start to empathise or prepare to help.
So there I am, typing away at a computer console behind the counter at Blockbuster Video on King Street, Ramsgate, sometime during a really sunny day in 2000. I haven’t been there long, and I’m checking in videos with the scanner and occasionally typing codes if the scanner doesn’t pick them up.
I’m happy and working away quite efficiently. I can’t remember who else was on shift that morning: possibly Kaz, maybe Nige. I’m not sure.
THEN it happens… quickly, but with enough warning that I get to see the whole thing in glorious detail.
A man in his early twenties, wearing a tracksuit and looking extremely sporty, is having a conversation across the road with a young woman. She’s playing with her hair and may well fancy him… because they’re talking pretty intensely. He is waving a DVD case with one of our company wrappers on it, so he must be planning to return a movie.
I’m still watching the couple when he turns, waves goodbye to the woman and begins to run towards us.
Somebody else on shift with me says, “Wow – that guy is really keen to get here!”
He comes thundering across the road like a racehorse, and he’s really SPRINTING: I can’t tell whether it’s because he’s showing off to the woman or if he wants to carry on talking to her, so he is hurtling along in order to return the video as quickly as possible.
Either way, he is running seriously fast. Breakneck speed, in fact.
That is when myself and the other staff member on shift both realise that he thinks part of the front window is two wide-open doors.
This has happened before. When the windows are clean, it genuinely looks like there is no glass between the street and the shop and that we've pulled a fresh set of doors onto the street.
People walk into the floor-to-ceiling windows at Blockbuster all the time, but they just laugh it off and move around to the door....BECAUSE THEY ARE WALKING AND THERE’S NO DANGER OF A REALLY BAD ACCIDENT.
This guy hits the front window with such force that there’s a bang like a double-barreled gunshot going off.
I’m amazed the window doesn’t break.
So is he, when the force of the crash sends him FLYING BACKWARDS AND HE LANDS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD ON HIS ARSE.
I wanted to help...but I’d never seen anyone actually fly before.
I wanted to shout out…but it was like watching some distorted version of a live-action Superman film.
I wanted to stop this horrible thing from happening.
But I didn’t.
I laughed.
I laughed, and laughed, and laughed.
I fell behind the desk and rolled around on the floor, trying desperately to avoid wetting my pants.
All across the floor of Blockbuster, I can hear other people roaring with laughter.
Other people who, like me, could have waved their arms and stopped this terrible accident rather than just watching it happen in slow motion.
When I finally drag myself back onto my feet, I see that the man is being helped up by four or five people. Two cars have stopped, and – miraculously – he seems to be okay.
I notice that the woman across the road is nowhere to be seen.
Five minutes later, when all the fuss is over, I look this man directly in the eye and simply say ‘thanks’ when he returns his copy of The Running Man on DVD.
How ironic is that?
