We're On Fire

September 22nd,

TODAY, Louis died.

When Louis died, it didn't happen how he suspected it would be.

Louis thought he would die from a heart attack or skin cancer, the way so many people died nowadays. He thought he would live a long, healthy life despite his love for greasy hamburgers and crisps and meet a nice boy, proceed to fall in love, settle down, get married and have lots of beautiful gurgling babies with his partner.

Louis didn't think he would die at the young age of twenty-four. But like always, life had a way of surprising him in the most unsuspecting of ways.

Louis was late for work, unusual even for him, (he took pride in waking up early exactly one hour before work to take a long, steamy shower, an equally longer wank, make himself a nice cuppa and dress himself nicely before petting his cat Mittens and driving off to work) and was waiting at the transit station when it happened.

The moment Louis died.

Louis was lounging on the bench with the peeling, cracked white paint, wood splinters sticking to the soft cotton of his clothes when he admired a little girl playing with her teddy bear. He watched her over his crisp newspaper, his hot to-go cup of tea cradled carefully in his delicate hand. Her parents were fighting with each other, arguing over some nonsensical thing or another while their precious daughter ran around freely, laughing happily to herself.

Louis chuckled to himself, his warm breath of air ruffling the papers. The three lights overhead blinked red, signaling the train was coming. He didn't think much of it that time.

The girl was happy, her parents were oblivious, and he was watching the doomed fatal moment Louis died.

The train was approaching closer, just a speckle of blurred grays and blacks. The little girl was standing to the edge of the cement, one footfall closer and she would fall over. Louis' fists clenched around the crinkled newspaper. Still, he didn't move. Maybe if he had and warned the little girl, he wouldn't be dead enclosed in a casket six feet ground under.

The train was clear in sight. The little girl threw the teddy bear up in the air. Everything happened in six seconds, but in Louis' eyesight, it happened in slow motion. The ratty bear fell on the train tracks, out of the girl's grasp. The innocent girl gasped and ran towards it, toppling over. She fell and scraped her knees, a gasp of breath shocked out of her mouth. Fat tears rushed down her cracked rosy cheeks. She clutched her knees and grabbed the bear quickly, the train approaching faster and faster, and stood up and tried to climb back up to safety. Except, she wasn't tall enough.

Louis threw the newspaper. He looked to his right, something like anger boiling deep inside his veins at the prospect that her parents didn't know she was seconds away from dying. He rushed over to the father, red in the face and pulled him by the shoulders, shaking him roughly.

"Hey, man," Louis' voice cracked. "Your daughter fell! She's gonna die."

Granted, it wasn't the best way to warn someone about danger, but goddammit Louis was hysterical and the truth did nothing but hurt.

The man's face went pale.

"Sarah!" he cried, escaping Louis' grasp and running towards her.

Louis had been a coward in the entirety of his lifetime. He wasn't there for his mum when their dad left them. Of course, he took care of the babies and did the housework when she was away for work, but he never took time out of his day to sit down and talk to her or let her cry on his shoulder. Every time she was close to tearing up, he would pat her shoulder awkwardly and leave the room. He wasn't good with emotions. How could he be there for his own mother when he didn't believe his father was a good man? He wanted to say, "He's a bad guy. He doesn't deserve us," but his mum deserved better than a few, pitying words.