4:45 am. I'm rolling over, trying to find a good spot in my bed. My shoulder hurts from being in one position all night. What woke me up? Oh, that quickly approaching siren. Wait a second, it stopped right outside my apartment. I wonder what's going on? Is it someone in my building? I open my eyes, and see blue flashing lights dancing on the walls of my room. I get up, put a shirt on, and open the jealousy on my front door. Wow, there are a lot of cops outside. I count five cop cars and one firetruck. What's going on? I see the firemen and a few cops huddled over something... a body? I can't see, where are my glasses? After some rummaging, I find my glasses and resume my watch. An ambulance has arrived. Should I go down there to get a closer look? That's probably disrespectful. But I open my door and watch from the safety of my balcony anyway. It's right there. That person is lying on the crosswalk right there. I just walked there yesterday. I don't see a damaged car, so I conclude that it was a hit-and-run. Scum of the earth, I think. Hit-and-runners belong with deadbeat parents, drug addicts and the like - too scared to take responsibility. The ground must be wet from the rain. Is the person alive? Is my brain just making up a story that isn't true? Maybe it's just a minor laceration or a concussion. But the person isn't moving. And they're lying down. It must be bad. The two paramedics are next to the person now, opening their bag and moving quickly. It looks like they're doing something that uses movement. Are they doing CPR? It's right outside my apartment. Someone is dying right outside my apartment. If it was yesterday, or tomorrow, i'd be on my way to boot camp. It could have been me. I could have seen it. I could have done something, maybe. I see them lift the person up onto the gurney. They wrap him up in the white sheets, but don't cover his face. I exhale a sigh of relief. So he's not dead. I can't see if he's intubated, or if that person is even a he. They close the ambulance doors. There's a man and a woman (I thought she was a child at first) near the crime scene (which is less than 10 feet away from my car). I don't know if they know the person, or maybe they're just being good samaritans. When the ambulance door closes, they walk away, talking to someone in a car that just drove up across the street. I don't think they know the person, but i'm glad they were there to call help. I wonder what will happen now? The ambulance takes off, and one by one the police cars leave. I wonder what the story was? I walk back inside to the still life of my apartment, shutting the door silently behind me. My bunny is sipping on some water as I head back to bed. It's 5:03 am now, what am I doing awake? I debate whether I'm sleepy enough to rejoin my fiance in bed, or just stay awake. I slip beneath the blanket next to a warm body, still alive, still breathing, and thank my lucky stars that it wasn't us on that wet pavement right outside my apartment.
