Interruptions 11/25/08

He did not mean for it to happen. No one means for things like this to happen, but they do. It was a mistake, Fletcher would try to tell himself. Mistakes happen and this is just the way things are. He would not feel guilty and yet he did. He felt guilty. He felt guilt pressing outward against his rib cage. Guilt wanting to rip him apart. Guilt making him explode. It was a beautiful day. Winter was threatening but had not some yet. The streets were cluttered with the gold of recently fallen leaves. It was cold. Cold enough for her to be wearing a woolen cap. He did not know her, did not know her name, but he could tell you about that cap if you asked. He hopes that no one asks. It was blue, a dark blue nearer to indigo and it had a yellow trim. All over, in random spots, there were yellow stars. She was wearing the night sky right there on her head.

Fletcher liked it and he was in such a good mood and she was so pretty, coming towards him on her bit, smiling. As she approached him, and it seemed like she was so far away, he yelled out, “I like your hat.” She teeters with laughter as she came towards him. “Thanks!” she shouted as she passed him smiling, and she kept her eyes on him, so Fletcher did the same to her. She must have seen the smile disappear from his face. She must have seen him turn white because her own face became serious and she turned her head to look forward, but it was too late. She could not be saved.

Did she yell out? Fletcher could not remember, but he is certain that there must have been some noise other than the sound of metal against skin, metal, cloth, the ground. And there must be something other than the sound of spokes clanging against the pavement. The sound of a tire spinning endlessly into the air. There must have been something else? Was it him? Fletcher could not remember. Did he let out a strangled, high pitched sound reflective of the fear he felt. She was on the ground, her limbs askew, the cap still on her head. Maybe you could imagine her as simply sleeping, as though people always fell asleep in the middle of the roads.

It was the driver’s fault, making a left hand turn into a girl on a bike. The driver is out of her car now, her hand still holding her phone up to her ear. She is saying, “I hit something. Oh, God. Oh, God. I hit someone. I hit someone. Oh, God.”

Fletcher asks her, “Is that 911? Did you call the police?”

The driver, on her phone looks at him, bewildered. “What? Oh, God, I hit someone.”

“Is that the police?” Fletcher asks and he points at the phone.

The driver shakes her head. “I have to call the police. The police. Is she dead? Oh, God, I hit someone. I killed someone.”

The thought did not cross Fletcher’s mind until this moment. The girl in the hat could be dead. She could be dead even if it looks like she is sleeping, with limbs spread out, on the pavement. “Call the police,” he tells the driver before going to the woman on the pavement.

There is blood on her hat. That is the first thing that he notices. It is seeping from the inside out, blacking out stars. The night sky in a certain area is dark. He knows he should not try to move her. He leans into her and puts two fingers up to her neck, checking her pulse. It is light, but it is there.


I like this story. It is crammed into a notebook that was full of two other major projects. One comes before it and the other comes after it. The truth about this story is that it got forgotten because the day after I wrote it something very serious and very big happened in my life. It was something that I couldn’t ignore. It was something that I couldn’t even understand and when things that big happen to me I have to write them out in a way that makes sense to me.

So this story got pushed to the side because of a big event that I needed to understand. The story that came out of that event was actually pretty good, but very personal, and so it’s not something that I like exploring or looking over. This story, this little moment before the other event, really is something that I should look into again. I like it.

The story came out of an experience that I had one day. I live in a town where it’s really easy to get around on my bike and so because of this, I ride it a lot. I’ve also learned that there are a number of people who want to kill me because I am on a bike. Actually, I think I’ve only had one run in with someone who seemed to actually want to kill me. The other people were all just really bad drivers. There are a lot of people who need to pay a little more attention when they are on the road. People on bikes actually do have the right of way which means that you shouldn’t make left hand turns into them. However, there have been a lot of times where I’ve almost been killed by someone making a left hand turn. Once, it was so close that about four people who were on the sidewalks around me actually screamed in fear. The driver that almost hit me was on the phone. Typically, if I almost get hit, the drivers are on the phone.

So one day, I was riding my bike to work and what happened in the beginning of this story happened to me. Someone complemented me on my hat and I was distracted and I turned to find someone trying to make a left hand turn into me. Fortunately, I was able to stop in time and make the appropriate WTF face at the driver. This story was born out of the simple idea that if I didn’t that poor nice guy who was just trying to complement my hat would probably feel really guilty but it would have been the driver’s fault completely. The driver wouldn’t feel guilty, of course, because people on their phones are too distracted to feel guilty. Plus, the guilt of the innocent bystander is much more interesting of a topic.

It’s too bad that my life got interrupted right after this. I would have liked to have seen where this story went. I might come back to it but now I’m at a different place in my life and my writing. Maybe later.