It was just like thousands of other videos on the web...a gangly teenage boy surfing on the front of what could only be his parents' car. As the car approaches the cameraman, you can see the boy realize in an instant that he has irretrievably lost his balance, his eyes seeming to preemptively glass over as his body anticipates the shock that awaits it.
For the next second is all too predictable. As the boy attempts to launch himself into the grass of the front yard he's currently passing, as he braces for the impact to his torso with both elbows and forearms drawn up instinctively, as one lower leg fails to clear the curb with a sound that can scarcely be tolerated even when heard at such a low bitrate and having been recorded on a camera phone; you can't look, but it's far too late to look away.
Then, of course, the camera swings wildly for a moment (also instinctive), and shocked snorts turn to aborted hysterical barks turn to "holy SHIT, dude!" and the running toward the figure that at last lies still, perhaps still conscious to scream or perhaps face down and motionless in the grass that still looks so impossibly soft for a landing.
One presumes that the boy has become inured to the horror of the video, watching it again and again until it's just Joe Theisman being hit by Lawrence Taylor...failing to align in pixellated form with the sensory overload that (if he is lucky) his brain failed to record with any clarity as the moment itself took place. Even on YouTube, it seems, there is never one single version of the truth.
