Unsuspecting Blessing.

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Part One: Convergence.

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Peterson did not usually eat breakfast, and when he did, most people would argue against his divisive choice of meal, which almost always—when it happened—was on the go. He grabbed a handful of three Slim Jims' on the dot, and gnawed on them like a rabbit on a straw of hay; ironically, a rabbit could also be described on how he hustled to class every day. He was always present, his absent ratio was nearly perfect, but his punctuality acted like a handicap to his hastiness on his way to class—something always interrupted the smooth flow in his feet and caused either a brief, or absurd everlasting halt.

A time that comes to his thoughts quite often is when on his way to college, almost at the eleven o'clock time when his class starts, he witnessed a literal robbery on the sidewalk across the street. A small and bulky man, with a head of thinning hair that looked like a sheet flapping in the wind as he ran towards an elderly woman walking the converging way, snatched her purse like in a movie. The woman did not let up from her purse, but she was ultimately not strong enough to wrench the man from continuing his assault. Peterson ran across the street without checking for cars, and shoved the man to the abrasive ground. Thankfully the woman had released the purse simultaneously, or else she may have taken a worse tumble to the concrete, but Peterson eventually recovered the purse and returned it to her. He had realized then, that he officially became late for class.

That memory often sparked in his head when walking down the sidewalk that led to his college, the same sidewalk where the event occurred. Peterson munched on a Slim Jim as he walked to the crosswalk that bisected the street and connected the two sidewalks, and as he stepped on the painted white lines, he saw a familiar face. A small, black haired girl that he knew from somewhere—and his recognition fact checked itself because she waved to him as they passed by. He thought to himself of where he could have known her from, and looked back to see her feminine figure once again, though it was covered by a heft of fabrics that only hinted.

When Peterson turned to face in front of him, he heard a layer of screams that were all very high-pitched and shrill, like shrieks of phantoms. Then a dull thud pounded on his eardrums, and he whipped around to see the ruckus. The girl that he just passed laid on the asphalt, grabbing her left leg, with her head fallen backwards as she cried out loud; practically screaming. Immediately Peterson ran to her, and he could see a thick whiteness coming from her navy blue pants. Her bone stuck out of her leg. The pants only got darker from where he stood, being soaked by the blood coming from her wound.

Peterson felt so overwhelmed and caught up with the girl that he had yet to notice the beige car, with rust covering its front bumper like plaque on teeth, sitting right in front of her. The car was still running, and the driver inside held his head with a face of gaping shock and insanity. The man behind the wheel did not get out of the car, but the passenger did moments after Peterson decided to kneel down to the girl and attempt to examine her obviously broken bone.

She cried so loudly that he could not understand coherent words that may have been coming from her mouth, so instead he put his hands on her arms and tried to get her to look at him in order for him to see if there was any further damage.

The driver got out of the car, and shut his door with a powerful thrust, and the door slammed with a metallic wailing.

"I do not know!" He shouted, still holding his head like Edvard Munch's The Scream, "I do not know what happened I—This dumb old car it must have been the brakes again! The transmission the the!"

Peterson felt alarmed by the statements being made by the driver, who spoke with a nearly French accent but in the panic it was hard to truly tell.

"I don't know!" The driver shouted, over both the girl screaming and the car still running to his passenger, "I don't know what is wrong with the car!"

His words were mushed together by his unknown, and quite frankly, gibberish-sounding accent.

"Hey!" Peterson shouted, "It doesn't matter what is wrong with the car or your driving! Call the police! This girl needs help!"

The man and his passenger stopped buzzing and fussing about the car and both pulled out their phones.

"Just one of you!" Peterson barked, feeling like an elementary school teacher having to explain that. He turned back to the girl and resisted the urge to physically shake her free from her hysteria. "Look at me, please look at me," his voice was raised, but not authoritative, "we are going to get you help as soon as possible, okay?"

The girl nodded and her screaming died down to mumbled whines and groans.

"Would one of you turn off that damn car?" Peterson barked at the men again. He turned back to the girl and made his best attempt to make eye contact, but her head still hung backwards. He propped her head up with his hand and spoke to her: "What is your name?"

At this point, Peterson realized that the girl's eyes had closed. She was one of two things, blacked out or dead. With a deep breath and a horrific crawl in his stomach, Peterson reached for her chest, then realized there was more than one place to check a person's pulse, and placed his two fingers on her slim wrist—which he had to pull up her shirt sleeve to do so. Her pulse pulsed, as far as Peterson knew. To double check, he placed his index finger underneath her nose, and felt soft puffs of air on his skin. She was alive.