self evident

I’m walking away now, following the lead of the lady carrying bread. And before her, the younger one. The latter saw it all from the start, made the call to the police, actually runs away and is probably late.

The police aren’t interested in asking me, or anyone, questions. I’m not in the mood to talk or explain my role. To try to talk and attempt to explain my role.

I suppose it is all rather self-evident. One man sitting on the ground, a pool of blood continues to grow in front of him, his glasses twisted and missing a lens beside him. He is leaking from his forehead and the bridge of his nose. Trying to pull his identification from a jacket pocket his hand shakes. And is spackled as he breaks the vertical plane of his blood’s downward trajectory.

The younger of the two women I am with is non-plussed about the blood. I catch her saying something about not wanting to, or perhaps she can’t stomach, looking at the wound. I feel a bit guilty; the gash is my fault.

Finally the police pull up to take charge of the scene, carefully unnecessarily blocking a road. She’s around twenty-four, five months and seventeen days old, and is explaining she saw him fall three times: there, there and finally here.

Before, she is telling a man rushing up, late to the party, with a cell phone, that she has already called the police. I realize I don’t know what one dials here, certainly not 9-1-1. Something to look up, or maybe I should just be extra careful. For life.

A new woman appears beside me, says something, waves her hand in exasperation at the nerve of some people. I think she just got out of a car that is parked nearby. I take her to say, “The nerve of some people. Falling on their faces, stumbling in the roads, causing traffic congestion...” I respond with, “Je suis un assistant de langue...” and let her fill in for herself that I have no clue what she’s talking about.

I should try to converse more fully I suppose, but I decide when something important might need to be communicated it’s better she knows I’m a git.

The two ladies and myself are just standing around, watching our friend slowly dripping-out onto the sidewalk. He moans a bit. Inspects his shattered glasses. Stares, watching as the drips trace a degreeless arc, straight down. The cement is still plenty grey.

I help him lift his face from where he had embedded on the cement, hooking him under the arms and dragging him a few feet to a cement pole he can lean on. My decision to help him into a sitting position came a few moments too late. Might have been better if I had done that in the first place. I didn’t.

Instead I leave him leaning on a car thinking that should do the trick. Off the road and safe. Gravity has other ideas. He goes forward. His arms don’t.

It’s funny how I have read the phrase “a sickening thud” or others of its like dozens of times. But each time I hear a sickening thud all I can think is, ‘Oh right. A sickening thud.’ It’s one of those noises. You’ll know it when you hear it.

Sometimes language makes me pause for the briefest instant. A helping hand doesn’t need words but sometimes words let you grab someone more fully. The struggling trio apparently needs my help. It’s nice to feel strong as I hoist the man. I catch a whiff. Not like any seizure I’ve ever smelled.

Just coming up the stairs from the IUFM where I work and there’s a lady carrying une baguette, moving to aid another, younger woman. Across the road she is trying to help a man slouched on the road rise. There are cars waiting for a clear path. Some sort of seizure I figure.