Streetlights glow, orange and brilliant across the dark city streets. The sky is calm and clear. What a beautiful night! I'm driving home from a friend's house in a beat-up station wagon that my mother lent me.
"It's for class." I had said with my best puppy dog expression.
She took a moment to think, then relented and extended the keys to me with a jingle. "Brian, if you put so much as a scratch on that car. . ."
"Cross my heart!" I interrupted with a dramatic flourish, before snatching the keys and dashing out the door.
I roll down the windows and delight in wind against my face as I cruise through the city streets. The trip may only be a short one, but it's a very rare occasion that my mom lends me her car. When the opportunity comes I like to enjoy it. Ahead, a traffic light flips to an authoritative red and I brake reluctantly to a stop.
Sleeping on the sidewalk beside me is a homeless man. He is coddled in dirty blankets and newspapers, filthy hair covers his scalp and face like a sickly lion's mane. Laying at his feet is a bent cardboard sign with 'Anything Helps' written in black marker. There is a brief flash of gold at his neck, but I pass it off as a trick of the light. His eyes open, gray and piercing, and raise to meet mine. Before they have the chance I cut off our connection, staring through him, past his silent pleas. I turn my eyes back to the stoplight, willing the light to change. After a guilty eternity it flips from red to green and I put my foot to the gas, chancing one last glance at the downtrodden man. His eyes are wide, frightened, and looking directly at me.
From somewhere in the hazes of my mind I hear the chilling squeal of skidding tires. An instant of dread overwhelms me, then everything is forgotten as a bus plows into my rear bumper. Glass shatters and broken bits fill the air like a crystalline mist. Fiberglass and metal crumple and break. The frame warps and bends. The collision sends the car spinning and everything outside the car becomes a foggy blur, a poorly detailed parentheses in my memories. A breath wrenching shock rocks through me as the car smashes into some immovable object. Darkness envelops me.
My eyes flutter open and I feel thick and heavy like I'm in a dream. Broken glass amidst torn upholstery, uncomfortably warm flickering light, blood; this landscape is alien to me. What . . . what's happening? I hear something faintly in the distance, shouting, effort, metal being wrenched and pried. My door flies open with a loud cry of exertion and strong hands free me from the vehicle. There is movement now, a bustling, frenetic pace as my rescuer half carries half drags me away from the vehicle and lays me down on the sidewalk. From the corner of my eye I watch as my car erupts like a funeral pyre, drowning out the night.
There is a tightness in my chest now, like a great weight is being pressed down upon me and I struggle to breathe. My rescuer's suddenly face pops into my vision, panicked gray eyes framed in brown matted hair. It's the homeless man. He's kneeling beside me shouting something at the top of his lungs. Around his neck dangles a small gold locket, shaped like a heart. What an odd thing for a man to be wearing. It reminds me of my mother's necklace. Man, how am I going to tell her about the car? The weight on my chest is unbearable now. A few stunted gasps and I stop breathing altogether. The world goes black as my rescuer shouts to me frantically.
My eyes creak open again, almost involuntarily and barely a sliver. The homeless man's lips are pressed tight to mine, his unwashed beard rubs against my skin. He exhales a deep breath: one, two, three, and with each count my chest slowly rises. He places his hands on my chest, one on top of the other, then compresses: one, two, three. With each count blood sludges through my veins. Sobs wrack his body as he struggles desperately to work my useless heart. He is weeping, weeping and screaming, purple-faced. Locked within my unresponsive body I marvel at the sight. Then my tenuous grip on the conscious world fades.
Pain. Dull and masked, but definitely pain. My eyes open hesitantly to the blinding red/blue strobes of emergency vehicles. I am strapped down tightly to a gurney in the back of an ambulance. Various tubes and wires protrude from me, some taking measurements while others pump fluids. A paramedic sits beside me, monitoring various instruments while another speaks to a gravel-voiced man outside the vehicle. A slight movement and I think I see the faintest flash of gold. "He'll be fine." I hear the paramedic say reassuringly before pulling the doors closed.
"Thank you." I whisper to my savior as we drive off. Tears are welling in my eyes.
"Thank you."