You may have already seen this photo circulating somewhere. It's usually titled something funny, like "Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions," or something succinct, such as "Motorcyclist Flees Fire." It doesn't really matter, does it? Words are an afterthought here. That man is fleeing what is obviously a gargantuan disaster, and he is doing so with the kind of resolute jaw and steely-eyed gaze that can only be measured in magnitudes of Bruce Willis.
But while the image alone certainly tells a compelling story of determination (and possibly revenge? Dude sure looks like he's on his way to dropkick some terrorists), there are two important facts to note: First, that is a scooter, not a motorcycle. There's a big difference between fleeing certain doom on an agile, ground-based missile and doing so on one half of a clown car. Scooter Man up there saw the physical manifestation of the end times approaching him -- a giant, roiling, molten smoke cloud straight out of The Lord of the Rings -- and he looked at his 30 mph moped and thought, "Eh, I'm in no hurry." The second thing to note: That is not a factory explosion or even a forest fire behind him. That is an erupting volcano. And a friggin' huge one at that. This photo was taken during the 2010 eruption of Mount Merapi in Central Java, which looked like this:
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