freeze-frame

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You know how sometimes you witness a moment and it happens really fast but your brain takes a freeze-frame and you just remember that one moment instead of the whole scenario?

As I was leaving work this evening, it was still light out with just a few clouds and as I sat admiring the general beauty of the outdoors, and also waiting for the light to change green, I noticed a young couple walking down the sidewalk headed in my direction.  It all happened so fast:

My left-turn arrow turns green.  I accelerate.

Halfway through the intersection, I notice that the couple is about to cross.

A car who has the yield sign, but obviously doesn’t notice the couple, keeps on cruising through his right turn just as the girl sets her foot into the intersection.

Mind you, I’m still mid-turn.

All in one motion, she starts stepping in front of the moving car and the guy sticks his arm out to his side across her belly, holding her back, while he turns to look straight at the driver who almost ran over his lover.

I still see the heroic air in his stance as he saved his girl from danger.

I don’t know, maybe he overreacted.  Maybe she was going to stop in time.  Maybe they aren’t dating yet and she was infatuated, or perhaps bothered, by his overt effort to save her and prove himself manly and strong.  Maybe she felt demeaned as a woman and got mad at him a second later because “can’t I look after my own safety?”

But it was a sweet picture.  I hope that it made her fall more in love with him because he cared enough to stop her from getting hurt.