... of the Human Heart

Lion King of Pop - Charcoal Transfer, 18x8

A cargo train sat on top of the overpass, unmoving. The engine car was a deep blue; faded yellow letters declaring the name of the company to all of us below.
I could see the conductor leaning out the window, watching the traffic, just as I was watching him. The chain of cargo stretched beyond vision along the track, a mongrel of colored and tagged cars of diverse sizes and shapes. I was never very good at reading graffiti tags.

The orange hand of God blinked in the “Don’t Walk” position, warning those on foot that I was soon to plow through this intersection. The interval of the hand and the blackness synced up perfectly with the music I was drowning in: “In the End,” Nicholas Megalis.
The way the pulses matched up, not quite a coincidence but something close, made me smile; I sang along, “I’m hyper sensitive, focus on the positive, Nick you are insensitive, Nick you are insensitive!”

I pulled out through the intersection, turning left.  The car and I slip under the overpass, forgetting the train as we get up to forty. The engine beneath me purrs as it shifts gears all on its own and I end up behind an early 2000s Honda Odyssey with small, rusty bits at every corner where two planes meet. The song ends.
I hit the AM/FM button and flip to the radio; an overbearingly loud voice heralds the fortunes of Kia of Bedford. The Odyssey and I make another left, heading east.

The early May breeze flows in my window, a faint smell of exhaust, but mostly a crisp scent of cut grass – I had been hearing the sound of lawn mowers all day. I let my left hand drift out the window, gliding on and breaking the air with a heavy whipping sound.
I look at all the lawns I pass, green yards and pastel colored houses silhouetted against the muted grey sky. The blanket of clouds is slightly ruffled in the distance, a dark red color washing the folds. I hear a tearing sound, a scream of metal and someone sounding far away, “Oh my god.”

I pry my eyes from the clouds just in time.
My idle feet slam on the breaks (screeching and ripping) and I wrench the wheel to the right, not wanting to swerve into carnage.
Thankfully I hadn’t been following too close; the Odyssey was no longer in front of me, it was something else, a twisted fusion of cars and people that were stitched with blood and glass. The minivan’s side panel had been struck by a red-light runner, a Ford Focus. The new metallic mass was hissing smoke and other drivers, like me, had to slam to halts to avoid joining this automobillic monstrosity. 

I push the red safety button on my seat belt and fly out the door, cell-phone in hand.
9-1-1.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“There’s been an accident! Tiedleman and 117^th! Oh god, uhh, a t-bone, I – Oh god.” I dashed to the Odyssey’s driver-side door and find it knocked open and a limp figure hanging out, kept from falling by her taught safety belt. A woman.                
The phone is limply grasped, “Sir? Sir, are you there? Help is on the way, please stay on the line.” I wasn’t really listening, but I know that’s what was said.

I drop the phone – the screen cracks – and shoulder the door farther open as I put my arms under the young girl in the tangle of belts, glass and airbags. The bags have begun to deflate and I’m trying to hold her up as I fumble for her safety belt release.
My shoulder feels wet and I hear panicked voices on the other side of the car, I hope someone else is miming my actions with the Focus driver.
“Hey, hey you, I’m getting you out of here.” My fingers manage to find the plastic where the belt clips in, if I wasn’t so scared I would have felt perverted – my hands were practically groping her thigh as I searched.
She’s free. A small blonde thing, if I hadn’t seen the accident myself I would make a blonde-female driver joke (“there is a tree in the road!” “Ma’am, that’s your air-freshener”). Another pair of hands helps me lower her to the ground, a few yards from the wreckage. The left side of her face is a scarlet mask with flecks of safe-t glass peppered in for texture.
“You’re going to be alright, I called 9-1-1.” Who did I say that for?

The pair of hands beside me disappears and becomes feet that move towards the car.
My first two fingers move to the side of the girl’s throat…
Nothing?
No. No, I felt something, she was alive. Barely.

I look up and sigh with relief; I want to share with the other someone who was there. The helping limbs belonged to a tall man in jeans. He was bent over fiddling around in the car.
I should be puzzled, but I can’t be anything but thankful, “She’s alive.” I know I need to get something on her head wound.
I see the man who helped me. He spins on his right foot, eyes darting left and right as they settle on me. Guilt is evident on his face and I finally start feeling confused, “Hey! What are you doing!?”

In his hand are keys - a jumble of silver and a tiny Eiffel Tower replica – bunched in the crook of his arm is a patterned bag, a woman’s purse. Far off I can hear the whistle of the train.
The scene feels still, no one honks their horns and the few screams have died off. The voice of the 911 Dispatcher leaks out of my broken phone, I don’t know what she’s saying. The man in the jeans swallows.
He breaks eye contact with me, head down, and dashes around the hood of the car. Gone.

I hear sirens in the distance.

The driver of the Focus bled out.