A man, visibly shaken, was standing next to the walkway. I had seen people pulling someone out of the overturned car and I assumed this was that lucky soul. He played with his jaw and walked to the rail and sat down. This was a lucky man to walk away from an overturned car like he had. Looking back at the car I could see though the upside-down open door. Air bags deployed, the now useless pieces of cloth hung depressingly in the interior of the totaled sedan. I kept walking.

Glass covered the ground intermittently over the ground where the car had flipped. looking ahead I saw two crouched figures and a man lying on his back. A tan Timberland boot lay on the road five feet behind him. More glass. I kept walking. I noticed a fine sheen on the road in front of the prone man. A reflective pool of warm, new blood covered the road. The men crouched by his head tried to keep his neck straight. His face was covered in blood. Darkness enveloped him as the men crouched over him covered his bloodied face in shadow. I stopped walking. A lump of unrecognizable tissue sat at the man’s side bleeding, dead, disconnected. This man was not ok.

I stood there for 10 seconds not caring about my walk home or what I was going to eat for dinner, all I cared about was helping. I touched my pocket and felt my phone. Dead. A blank stare washed over my face. I kept walking. Each step resounding an overwhelming feeling of helplessness through my body. One of the men holding the injured man’s neck yelled if anyone knew CPR. Only from movies. I kept walking. The sounds of sirens in the distance. The cogs of modern society turning. Emergency procedures being put to work. The bridge ended. I turned the corner onto my street, inconsequential, small, helpless, a dead man walking with his brains in his head instead of on the sidewalk. I walked and kept on walking, a drum major for death’s victory march.