Three Figures

Three Figures - part 3

It was late, too late. My thighs ached but I forced them to run harder, to sprint because it felt good. My beating heart, aching legs, flying hair, it all felt natural. Just 10 minutes later I was nearing my neighbourhood. I recognised street signs and houses, crazy letter boxes and corner stores. I smiled as I realised I had found my way back, as I per usual. The end of my street neared closer and I slowed, wanting to arrange my thoughts before I entered the house. The air was rent with the sounds of burning tyres on bitumen and lights swung about, freezing me where I stood, like a kangaroo caught in head lights. Nothing felt real but it was all too real and before I knew there was a sickening thud as the crazy skidding noises stopped. Silence. There was no noise anymore, the breeze had stopped blowing, the trees stopped swaying, there was nothing. I knew I shouldn't have looked but I had to, every single bone in my body told me not to, but I did. It was a Ford; it was an old, tall gum tree that had survived longer than the car and would continue to survive. I had never been unable to run in my entire life, it's what I was best at, running away but I was stuck, couldn't move. I watched my eyes unable to tear away from the scene in front of me. I stepped towards the car as it gave a quiet groan and the noise returned all at once. A siren blared in the distance and it wasn't until I saw the phone in my hand that I realised I had summoned it. I wrenched the door open and saw them again, for the third time that day. Her purple dress now had a light stain of blood spreading across it. His face was gently smiling, just happy to be with her but there was something so wrong with it. It wasn't his eyes that terrified me; it was his lips slightly open, trickling blood down his chin. Hands wrapped around my waist and I was moved away from the scene. I stood at the edge crying silently as their wonderful bodies, once so filled with life and love were covered in black bags, why black, why not purple like her dress, or blue like their coffin, the wreckage of the car. A young policeman stood off to the side, he was vomiting into the gutter. I approached him and he smiled, then he broke and the tears streamed down his face just as they did on mine. "It's my first day, I wasn't expecting this. I wanted guns and chases, not blood. Why am I telling you this? Did you know them?"

"Not really. They are my neighbours but we just moved here. She was really beautiful. I saw it, I was running and then. I was going to go and introduce myself to them...It just came out of nowhere and it; it hit the tree with such an awful sound. I feel like I knew them. They were like an open book and so obviously in...The blood went everywhere. The kids, they're at home still. I think they were going out for dinner." I was jumpy, unsure of what to say, nervous and above all frantic. I had never seen anything like what I had just witnessed. The crumpled remains lying in pieces across the road, the contorted shape of the bonnet; the bone showing through a deep, dark cut in her arm. The reality had hit the young officer standing next to me; there were kids out there who were now orphans because of a single white, ghostly tree. His whole life he would be plagued by images of grieving people, tears, blood and loss. A senior officer approached us with a rug and some coffee. I gratefully accepted and he sat with us by the roadside in complete silence. There were quiet murmurs in the background but each of us was lost in our own thoughts.

Stamping feet woke me from my imaginings and I saw the one thing I didn't want to see, couldn't bear to see. There were three children running down the street towards the twisted wreckage of the car. A group of policemen moved forward and attempted to restrain them but they shoved and tackled their way through and knelt before the twisted wreckage. My vision blurred and my heart pumped loudly in my chest as the two boys wandered towards the policemen and I. They wandered around in circles violently changing course before collapsing on to the ground, gripping each others arms, holding on to the only thing they had left. The image of them sobbing into each other's shoulders while the young girl sat but five metres away, her legs crossed and silent tears streaming down her exhausted face, would forever be in my head and I knew I would never as long as I lived forget it. I slowly rose to my feet, practically dragging myself to a cluster of people in uniform. They glanced at me, angry sores up my arms where I had scratched so hard to forget the images burning in my eyes, revealing them selves to me every time I blinked. The pain was unbearable and I wanted to be with my Mum, more than anything right now. I stood stuttering for a while before I finally found my voice and asked if there was anything I needed to say, anything about the accident. They smiled at me and nodded their heads encouragingly, "That won't be necessary, you've done quite enough tonight and we think we've determined what happened. My friend here can point you to a grief councillor if you would like." I smiled, thanked them but said it wouldn't be necessary. I wrote my phone number down at their request before departing.

That hope I'd had, that maybe just maybe I could come to like this place was totally extinguished now. I wanted to get as far and as fast away from this godforsaken town as I could.

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