The dense, late August summer heat, made the air hard to breathe. The strands of your wind blown blonde tendrils frizzing from the high humidity, in the blistering atmosphere. The sun was high in the sky as the morning hours bled into the early afternoon, it's rays at their peak of the day. Shinning down it's bright light across the crowded street, and plaguing the bodies lining it with it's suffocating heat.
You could feel the rays of sunshine burning down across your bare arms, feeling as though it was searing straight through the surface, as you didn't have a second to think about protection from the sun on your way out the door. Leaving yourself vulnerable in a thin black tank top and denim shorts, exposing your bare skin to the sun, like a blank canvas for it to paint it's light freely across. But you could feel it now, glaring down against your face that was already beginning to sweat in the thick summer air and from the racing of your heavily beating heart.
Your legs guided you more clearly than you mind had, as you jumped out of your vehicle that you parked by the curb down the street, and sprinted down towards the crowds that had gathered. The sidewalks that stretched for blocks, lined with miscellaneous shops and restaurants, were swarmed by not only congregations of curious bystanders, but police and emergency personnel. The surrounding buildings looked as though spotlights had been propped up and were now reflecting the bright red and blue flashes against the deep brick and white sidings. There were too many police cars to even try to count, as they were all parked and strategically angled in front of and around the large standing bank, in the middle of the small downtown strip. Ambulances blinked with their lights in the distance, hovering nearby in wait, and large black trucks and SUVS were sprinkled within the brightly flashing police vehicles. S.W.A.T. and the F.B.I. on the scene, making the panic already clutching tightly to your palpating heart, grow in the sickening churn of your stomach.
Sirens pierced the atmosphere, the shrill sound of emergency vehicles and chaotic chatters from hundreds of concerned citizens around you, echoed inside of your ears. The noise overwhelming and there was something about all of the pandemonium that made you feel small on that crowded sidewalk. As though you were an ant beneath the sole of your shoe, invisible to the eye in all of the commotion and easy to crush with a single step. It felt as though you were a ghost, as you tried to make your way through the mosh pit of alarmed and concerned bystanders. No one hearing your pleas to get through, or acknowledging your presence as you brushed past more bodies than you wished. It was almost claustrophobic, making your way through the maze of people that packed the street, having to push through the nicks and crannies that you could find in order to finally reach the front of the pack. Your hands pushing past, until they finally came in contact with the rough wood of the police barricades that were placed all around the bank. Keeping the public at a far and safer distance.
The sun hung high in the sky, directly above a shop across the street from you, which unfortunately meant that it's beams were painfully aimed towards your eyes. Making them squint in the shine from the blistering sun that you could feel burning through your skin, and even as you lifted your right hand to cup against your forehead in an effort to shield the glare, the light of the sun was still strong.
The scene that played out feet away from you, far in front of the crowded safety of the thick blue police barricades, was disorienting. For everything seemed to be nothing more than blurs of light and reflections and moving bodies that nearly faded into the background, the speed in which the entire scene moved made each action almost pass you by. For your eyes searched through the vehicles that lined the street like a messy car dealership. Trying to focus as they bounced from the flickering lights on top of the police cars, that made you see them in your vision far after you looked away, to the large black trucks and SUVs that belonged to the heavy artilleries and higher authorities. The scene before you was chaotic, the amount of movement making your head spin as all you wanted to do was scream out for everyone to stop, for time to slow, and to allow you to find the one person you needed to out of the crowd of police and armed agents. But if anything, it seemed as though the blue vested, heavily armed and serious personal moved at a faster speed, than the rest of the world. For out in the crowd of close, sweaty and worried bodies on the street, you felt as though you stood in a time warp where the seconds felt like suffocating hours, but out there, it looked like the pace was as quick as your anxious heart inside of your tightened chest.
