Holding My Breath [Wattys 2016]

1 9 ~ A n n a

                 

Flashback ~ December 29, 2010

Somehow, I end up back at the store. At the scene of the robbery. I know it's stupid to go back, but what if the old clerk is still alive? What if no one else knows he was shot?  I can't just leave him there to die.

By the time I get to the store, chaos is everywhere. A couple of police cars are parked outside the door, an ambulance right alongside them. The lights that flash against the dark silhouette of the convenience store make it hard to see.

Squinting, I can see two people carrying a stretcher with a black body bag on it.

My heart jumps into my throat and I force myself to keep walking, the money burning a hole in my pocket. The ground feels like it's moving beneath me for a moment as I try not to faint.

I shouldn't be here right now. It looks too suspicious.

What are my parents going to say?

What about the police?

There is a bench in the shadows on the side of the road, next to a mailbox and an old pay phone. It's frozen solid with ice. But with the drums still pounding in my head, I let myself stumble towards it. I sit down, finding that I feel safer in the cover of darkness.

I'm hiding again. In the dark, the cops and EMT's can't see me. They aren't going to be the ones who break me from my silence. Not right now, anyway.

I watch as the police officer makes calls and the ambulance drives away with a siren blasting through the night. Somehow, that makes it worse. They are using the sirens even though there are no cars on the street. Even though the patient inside is already dead. Everything moves so slowly, but it's still so real.

Sitting, watching from the outside of the action, it is the calm before the storm. I don't know where the man is. I don't know what is coming next. But there is one thing I know for sure: it will be a storm.

The kind that wrecks everything.

The kind that will tear everyone who gets in the way.