We Could Have Done Something, but We Didn't

           It was two in the afternoon as we walked along the city sidewalk, heading home with the food in our hands. Bums and the homeless lined the streets, some standing, eyes expectant, whole body hopeful and wanting. Others sat and didn’t care for any particular thing at the moment. Maybe they had just gotten paid and found their high somewhere.

            Across the street a man stumbled close to the road. He had a red beanie on, an acid washed jean jacket and was stumbling drunk at 2pm on a Wednesday. We stopped and watched him because he was edging closer and closer to the road, where the cars drove past without much care for pedestrians or drunks.

            Eventually he fell and his head bounced off the road but there were no cars around to run him over. She reached out from a few hundred feet away, as if some telekinetic power would save him. He got back to his feet and stumbled along again, seemingly with nowhere to go.

            He fell a second time and then a third. The third time his head landed perfectly as a dirty, yellow taxi drove by. I’m sure the front wheel killed him, but the back wheel made his head explode. The cabbie slammed his breaks and leaned his head out the window. “Jesus Christ.” He yelled. There was blood all over his taxi and the sidewalk around him.

            We could have done something, helped him along to a bench or into the grass so he could sleep it off, but we didn’t. A few cops came, checked the dead man’s pockets for ID, but they just found change and lint. An ambulance came, took the body away and we went home with our food, ate it and watched a movie until bed time.

The Piano Player

As a piano player he was good not great, as a person he was bad but not evil.

“I was having my piano lesson, I think I was about ten. My teacher was this old man with skeleton fingers. He was pretty good but boring as hell.  He didn’t know how to teach so he gave me the book and we went over a section and then he sent me home and told me to go over and over and over the same section.

“That day he was really sweating, but it was Florida so I never thought about it, plus I was ten. He said to keep practicing he was going to lie down for a little bit. So, I practiced for about fifteen more minutes then went and played some video games. A half hour goes by and my mom shows up and tells me to keep playing video games everything is fine. But, I could tell something had happened.

“So, here I am playing Nintendo and then I see some ambulance people go down the hallway. My mom told me to stay put so I didn’t move. About fifteen minutes later the ambulance people come back through and there’s Mr. Santelli in a body bag with just his face showing. He was pale and his mouth was wide open but his eyes closed.

“After they left mom took me to get some ice cream and the next week I had a different piano teacher, a much younger woman. She said I was pretty good and I don’t think she really wanted to teach piano, so I would play a little while and then do whatever I wanted for the rest of the hour. But when mom showed up, I was sitting at the piano.”

Options Options Options

He was a little drunk and had hit her with his car. He saw the little light blinking but wasn’t quite sure what it was in the dark. By the time he saw her green night bike riding uniform he didn’t have enough time to swerve away. She flew over the car, bike and all, and he slammed on the brakes.

She had a helmet on but the way she had landed broke her neck. She lie there with her tongue hanging out like a dead cow’s, her eyes wide open and her head over her left shoulder.

Quickly he picked her up and put her in the backseat, her head hanging limp from her detached neck. After he got her in the back seat and the bike, mangled, in the trunk he got in the driver’s seat and started driving, constantly looking in the rearview for any sign of headlights or blinking blue and red.

A few times as he drove he puked in his seat as he thought about her dangling head. If he admitted it all, told them he had a few beers and a few scotches at the bar after work, he would go to jail. The law had no patience for drunkards. Involuntary manslaughter, leaving the scene of the crime, it was all too late now. If he called the police immediately maybe he would only do 10 years. This was his third DUI though, they probably would try to get him to do 25.

There was a bridge ahead and not many options. Turn himself in and go through America’s penal system or the bridge and all the serenity that death brings. He sped up, got in the far right lane and then burst across traffic, plowing through the concrete, hitting the water below.

Subsisting in the Modern Age

When he slept he couldn't stretch his legs out or they would hit the end of the wall so he slept on his side with his knees curled up. The room was only wide enough to fit two small people side by side laying down. There were continual leaks that dripped into metal bowls he had to walk down the hallway and empty every four or five hours. Really though, he only spent five or si hours in his little apartment every day, the rest were spent working.

They kept him too tired with work and just docile enough with a television so he never made much noise about his situation. He could never imagine a thousand miles away people had bathtubs bigger than his entire home. Or that, not only did they have their own bathroom but they had three or four. He was happy enough. He had food with a little spice and a television. Plus, he was good at his job and his manager was thankful for that.

One night as he slept he felt a little drop on his head. The leak was growing but he didn’t want to complain so he just moved a bowl under the drip and slept at the bottom half of his bed. Another hour passed and there was a small rainstorm in his little apartment. He wasn’t sure who to tell because he didn’t know who owned the building. Finally, the ceiling and all that was above it, came down and crushed him and his tiny existence.

His manager’s water heater had been leaking for months and finally the floor had had enough. They cleaned out the mess, replaced the water heater and after a week it was an apartment again.

When she slept she was the perfect size.

We Kill Everything

I gently opened the door with the barrel of my gun. The light was low and dust floated lazy in the afternoon air. With my rifle pressed to my shoulder I scanned the room looking for anything that moved.

In the corner behind a low table sat a small girl holding a baby lamb. Her eyes were big and brown and she pet the small lamb from the back of his neck to his tail to calm him. The lamb made little, cooing noises and arched its back.

I lowered my gun a little, “Where are your parents?” She didn’t understand. I pointed at her and letting my rifle sling over my shoulder, I moved my hand, palm down, upwards to indicate a taller person. She shook her head and held the lamb closer. Probably dead. I checked around the rest of the house and found nothing suspicious. As I was leaving the lamb let out a loud bleat. The girl started to sing to him in a small child’s voice that had just started to understand the world and knew all the lonely nights ahead and who only knew love before.

I pulled a protein bar out of my jacket. It was chocolate and peanut butter flavored so maybe she would like it. I unwrapped it and handed it over to her and she took it in her tiny, soft hand. Immediately she took a big bite and started chewing. Her eyes lit up and for the moment it was her and the bar and the taste and the world was not terrible. I got up to leave.

Another soldier burst in, saw the girl and the lamb, shot them both in the head. “We kill everything.” He said and moved on.

We killed everything I remembered.