Turn the corner, and you will die. Don’t turn the corner, and you will live!
Sometimes the smallest decisions can have immeasurable consequences, not only for ourselves but for our families, our friends. Every action has the potential to change our lives. For some, it may be as simple as a walk to the corner café to buy a cup of coffee. That is what happened to Laura Richards.
Laura turned the corner and was shot. The bullet hit her square between the eyes. This is known as the T-box area. Beyond this point is the lower brain, the parts most responsible for the processes that cause us to continue living. It houses the brain stem which is responsible for our organs functioning automatically, namely our heart, lungs, our central nervous system, as well as controlling the rest of the brain itself.
This means that losing it guarantees a complete and instantaneous loss of consciousness and life. Laura was dead before her body even hit the pavement.
Most people wake up and assume that the forthcoming day will be just another regular day. That is certainly what Laura thought as she prepared her daughter Carys for school and got herself ready for work. There is generally a sense of contentment within the glow of familiarity, and Laura was content with life. There was nothing to suggest that the morning would soon come to an abrupt end and that her life would be extinguished. She had no real enemies and did nothing that would single her out as a possible target for a killer. She was a single Mum with a ten-year-old daughter, whom she doted on. Life was very ordinary for Laura, and this was just another humdrum day in her very unexceptional life.
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After dropping Carys off at school, she entered the offices of “Pitch Perfect” advertising agency, where she had worked for the last eight years. During the next 15 minutes, a progression of events led Laura to her fate and her grievous encounter with the fatal 9 mm bullet.
It was Phillipa who generally went to the corner café to collect the four coffees and pastries that the girls in the client servicing team consumed every morning upon arrival. Phillipa was the junior member of the team and the designated “coffee collector” but Phillipa was unusually late. Jessy volunteered to go instead, but her phone rang as she was about to leave. She raised her eyes to the ceiling and mouthed the word
“Sorry” to Helen and Laura …. Laura smiled ….
“I’ll do it, don’t worry, I’ll enjoy the fresh air”.
“Are you sure?” asked Helen, “I don’t mind going. Rock, Paper, Scissors?” Laura laughed,
“OK … after three? 1, 2, 3” …. Rock beat scissors and Laura headed for the door.
The corner café was two blocks from their offices and just a 3-minute stroll. As she walked along the street, she bumped into Nigel from the Finance department. She hadn’t seen Nigel since returning from his honeymoon, so she spent a couple of minutes chatting. What did it matter if the coffees were delayed by a couple of minutes anyway? ….
Passing the bookshop which had just opened, she stopped briefly and debated with herself whether to collect a book she had on order. She decided it could wait until the lunch break and hurried on to the approaching corner. 16th Avenue was a fairly busy route at this time of the morning and needed to be crossed, but the pedestrian lights were just changing to amber. Dutifully, she stopped to wait as two or three other more impatient pedestrians hurried across anyway, even as the light changed to red.
“Everyone seems to be in a rush to get somewhere these days,” she thought. It was only a 30-second delay and the little green walking man soon appeared, and she crossed. Twenty meters further on, she turned the corner.