The next day didn't go as planned. Rhea and I didn't have our girl's day and I never called Smiruthi. It would have all gone accordingly if the incident in the morning didn't happen. It was the worst thing that could happen to anyone and the second worst thing to happen to anyone who was right there when it happened.
I woke up as usual in the morning and since I was only meeting Rhea in a few hours, I took the liberty to wake up and go for a jog. What I didn't realise was that I took the long path because I had jumpy music playing in my ear which made me more motivated to exercise. Halfway through the jog, I bent down to check my calf muscles and pressed them to see if they were hardening. They seemed firm and I was happy with myself. I was just about to continue my jog, when I heard an innocent voice scream in fear and a car skid to a sudden stop. I wanted to make sure I was imagining things, so I looked up for a split second when I noticed all the cars on the road had stopped to a halt and people were climbing out of their cars. In my heart, I knew exactly what that meant, but I had never witnessed an accident before. I crossed my fingers and hurriedly started to pray hoping that the people involved were okay. Pedestrians were flowing onto the road and crowding on the floor and that's when I realised that it was a pedestrian who had been hit. I quickly unplugged my headphones and called the ambulance number. I was terrified and hadn't even seen the poor victim yet. The ambulance reassured me that everything was alright and that they were on their way. They told me to check the pulse of the victim, and so I hurriedly rushed to the front of the crowd when the sight I saw left me in shock.
My phone slipped out of my hand but I didn't even care. I could only vaguely register that the lady behind me picked up my phone because, she tapped me gently on the shoulder and I grabbed the victim's hand and sure that his pulse was okay. His leg was shattered though and was stained with blood. I noticed that another man had taken off his tshirt and tied it onto the boy's leg which was bleeding but the boy kept staring into my eyes with tears struggling to get out and fear etched into them. The car had knocked him over and he had hit his head hard on the tar below. For some reason, I knew that when you had a concussion you could not even rest your eyes for a minute because you could very well pass away, so I held his hand and kept whispering that it would be okay, even when my tears threatened to spill at any moment. I wouldn't have known this if it wasn't for the heavenly words that fed into my ear, it was almost as if my guardian angel was guiding me. He seemed to respond to my words and I didn't know how much longer I could keep up the pretence of knowing that it would be okay and that's when I heard the familiar sound of the ambulance siren screaming and it was coming closer. I helped him sit up and cradled him close to me. He looked so scared and I could not get the fear out of his eyes no matter how hard I tried.
I was in shock for so long that the world only just started to break into my present thoughts. For all that time, I could only see the boy and the fear etched in his eyes and I could only hear my whispered words of consolation, but the world broke into my ears first when I heard the lady behind me talk.
Lady: no sir, the boy was by himself, I don't think anyone who knows him is here, but the girl with him is in shock,
Ambulance driver: were there any medics around?
Lady: yes sir, I am a nurse, we strapped his leg in a tshirt to stop the bleeding and the girl with him kept him awake because he hit is head. I told the girl to, somehow, she heard me even through her shock.
So that's how I knew what to do. The lady was a medic and my shock had deceived me. The lady had been feeding the golden words of wisdom, I felt so grateful.
Ambulance driver: so none of his relatives or friends are here?
I felt that it was time to speak up and my shock had all worn off, so I approached the ambulance driver and tapped him on the shoulder. My voice came out in a raspy whisper through my chapped lips.
'Sir, he's my close friend. His name is Jay Dash, and he if fifteen years old. His parents are close by,' I said struggling to hold the tears back but I couldn't.
The man who had tied the tshirt onto Jay's leg confirmed this, by looking at his ID card in his back pocket and nodding, which made me break down even harder. The ambulance driver just nodded at me and motioned me to get onto the ambulance straight after they put Jay in on his stretcher. The nurse lady gave me my phone back and told me she had sent a message to my parents about what had happened. I wanted to smile back, but instead I just nodded, my dry broken lips struggling to crack a smile. She understood, and patted my head before walking back onto the path.
The last scene I saw before we left the dreaded crime scene was the driver who was positioned against the car with handcuffs on his back, a police officer securing him in that position while another pulled empty beer cans out of the cup holder and the front passenger seat. The driver was drunk. He was clearly a hazard on the road and he had hit Jay. I could never forgive him for what he had done. A drunk driver had hit my friend and he would be severely punished for it. The drunk had red bloodshot eyes and he turned his head sharply to look straight into my eyes. He looked straight into my eyes without even a drop of remorse and turned his ugly mouth into a smirk before the officer dragged him away to the police car. But that scene, the last one I saw before the ambulance turned, haunted me for years after.
