To Forget

is palms ached, soaking in a freezing puddle on the pavement. Cold, sticky blood slid quickly down the side of his tear filled cheek, a river of red flowing endlessly down his face as he knelt in shock beneath a downpouring of rain. A reflection of a reflection, moonlight teased his watery eyes through the rippling puddle, turning a slow scarlet as the water mixed with blood streaming off his chin. There were other lights, too, darkened hues of red and blue shimmering on the wet blacktop. Sirens echoed painfully in his ears, overshadowed only by the constant patter of rain striking the ground. He could smell urine and French fries and gasoline ready to burn if sparked into flame. Plus there were voices— loud, static filled voices coming from everywhere. On bloody hands and bruised knees he remained motionless, eyes opening and closing toward the dark ground, wet clothing heavily plastered to his skin, a ringing noise filling the space between ears. His face throbbed, feeling black and blue and puffed out passed the tip of his nose. His image in the puddle mirrored the feeling, if less puffy than expected. He heard people screaming, though their shouts were dulled by the pools of blood blocking his eardrums. He could taste the bile in his mouth and feel more rising up his throat. People were running, some near and others far, but footsteps splashing through puddles were constant.

A cold wind ripped through his wet, soiled shirt. Placing first one foot on the slick pavement then the other, he staggered up, as if drunken, but could not remember drinking. He couldn't even remember why he was there, or where there was, but he was certain his body ached everywhere, although from what it was impossible to know. Dizzily, he pivoted, looking through a wall of rain to the sides and behind. Someone grabbed him by the arm—a silvery shield pinned on the other's chest—whispering something barely audible about being alright and calling out for some kind of help. He angrily pulled free, still unable to raise his eyelids against the steady downpour. Blood flowing down his face continued to his neck and he could feel it slowly trickling down his back as well. The cut at the rear of his head was fairly long, stretching farther than the length of his index finger, and the blood spilling forth soaked his clothing. He remembered screams and shouts and squealing rubber, but not from when or where. Spreading the torn material of his shirt at his biceps so skin was exposed, he pulled free the chip of glass embedded into the muscle. Blood streamed from the wound.

He stumbled awkwardly forward. Two wrecked cars were fused together in the street, the cold rain draining off the dented sides reflecting alternate blues and reds. The lights were bright, shining off a hundred different surfaces, and the twisted vehicles within the circle of police cars shone with deathly stillness. He remembered a car accident, but one a long time past. Here, one car—appearing terribly familiar with its gray paint and burgundy interior and bent license plate—had smashed into the other amid a now crowded intersection. The hood was bent back into the front seats and all that remained from the windshield was a trail of broken, blood-stained glass ending in red puddles at his feet. A woman's body lay mangled in the passenger side. He remembered that woman and her blond hair and her gentle walk and the funny little faces she would make when in a good mood, but he couldn't recall her name. The bodies of two little children were inverted in the back, a boy and girl twisted around the seats in horrid positions, the girl's tiny white glove resting in an ocean of blood on the dashboard. He remembered both children and their births and all the little games they played together. With both arms crossed before his chest to shelter from the cold, he silently walked past the scene, staying away from the bright lights and loud voices and people crying who must have seen the accident. The entire intersection was horrid to gaze upon, and he thanked whoever responsible that it had not involved him. He couldn't remember where he was planning to go, his body hurt, and he remembered breaking glass, a heavy impact and the feel of something crashing into the back of his head, yet now all he wanted was to go home.

People approached him constantly, people whom he did not remember and surely did not know. They all seemed frightened, looking upon him with a distant look of dread and fear and what else. . .sorrow? Sure, he was bleeding—although why would certainly be a good question—and his clothes were torn, but the people should have been more concerned about those in the accident, those dying before their eyes, unable to move or help themselves. He was only bleeding a little and would soon be home with his family. He brushed them away angrily as they tried to embrace him, wet raincoats an odd yellow surrounded by so many dark colors. He walked around a few police and between several cars waiting to cross the congested intersection, ignoring continuously shouted protests for him to return.

The sound of raindrops striking his head grew louder as the sirens gradually diminished. He remembered the street and the fast food restaurants and the odor of manure blowing in from the dairy farms a few miles west. He remembered driving with his family down the street and eating at the various food chains and seeing movies at the local theater, but it all seemed so long ago. Away from the neon lights of the restaurants and gas stations and police cars in the distance, it was quite dark, the quarter moon hidden behind massive storm clouds. His shirt was soaked in red blood, but he was much too cold to consider taking it off in the frigid rain. His legs wobbled, exhaustion overcoming him, but his mind raced with remembrances of things long past and faces without names. Brown, flaky leaves blew before his face as the wind ferociously gained strength, others plastered to the pavement beneath the rain which seemed to be flying parallel to the ground. Headlights on the few passing cars were blinding, similar to the flashes of lightning that filled the blackened sky. He remembered sleeping with his parents during such storms, warm beneath the blankets, and at other times holding his wife in his arms and letting his kids cuddle between. He missed home.

Turning to cross the street a few blocks past the accident, he glanced back toward the intersection. Wet leaves smacked the sides of police cars as men and women ran around frantically in communication with others. An ambulance was approaching from the other direction, its lights spinning reds and blues and whites into the web of police sirens still echoing down the dark street. From that distance it all appeared slow, as though people and machines moved eerily through the wind and rain in halted motion. Neither frantic nor hurried, they cleaned the mess of blood as janitors mopping up a cafeteria floor, dirty rags hanging loosely from back pockets. He remembered his old school cafeteria and the pictures of Jesus that hung on the walls and all the kids and the white and navy blue uniforms. He remembered his son's cafeteria and its numerous tables and seeing all the teachers conversing with other parents. He remembered breaking glass and screeching tires and a searing pain at the back of his head and the feel of flying helplessly through the air.

He broke away from the road of the accident, dazedly following a street away from the restaurants and gas stations and sirens. The rain violently slapped him in the face, the wind gusting directly against his body. Further from the main road everything became darker, no lights reflecting off the numerous puddles of standing water. He strained to see the concrete, his head aching with the wound in the rear. Blood still spilled from the gash and occasionally he held his hand over it to try controlling the bleeding. He remembered learning about such injuries at medical school and stitching up countless wounds at the hospital where he worked, but didn't feel like worrying about it. He would take care of it as soon as he got home.

He turned again a block later in the same direction, when the first houses began to line the rivery street. From the uneven concrete of the sidewalk he stared at the wind- driven rain illuminated in rays of light from lamps near seemingly barren houses, front doors and shudders bolted up against the storm. He remembered his house growing up and the bunk beds in his room and the holy crucifix hanging from the wall. He remembered staring at the crucifix on his wall during college when the wind crashed against the window. His breath warmed the air before his face as he continued down the sidewalk. It was miserable to be out during such weather and he longed to get home out of the rain and drenched clothing. Amid the faint light reaching his path his bloody hands and arms were a pale white that shivered with wet hairs pricked toward the air.

The bright glow of headlights grew stronger as a car noisily roared toward him from further down the street. He paused as it neared, raising his eyes against the downpour, the sound of its movement odd after listening for so long to pounding rain on hard pavement. It sounded old, the engine loud with metal clinking haphazardly as it approached through the cold, wet darkness. He remembered the car his parents gave him in high school and its chipped paint and rust and how it shimmied when speeding down the street doing thirty. He remembered buying his first car after graduating from medical school and driving it on dates with his future wife and rushing to the hospital in it when their first child was born. He remembered breaking glass and screeching tires and a searing pain at the back of his head and the feel of flying helplessly through the air, but the movement to his left destroyed the thought. Bright, white light spilled forth as a garage door slowly opened, the loud car pulling cautiously onto the puddled pavement of the driveway. He remembered hundreds of times pulling into his garage at the nice house he and his wife had had built and other times when the car would remain in the driveway because the kids’ bicycles were in the way. Freezing in the frigid rainwater, he began walking again, longing to feel the warmth of his home.

He was already past the house when the garage door finally closed again, leaving him in the stormy blackness. His head was turning numb, yet for some reason the wound continuously throbbed. He still wished he knew how he hurt himself in the first place, or for that matter, what he had been doing out in such nasty weather. His clothes were thoroughly soaked and the dark sky provided no clues that the rain would ever cease. He just wanted to get home and see his family and warm up. He remembered sitting in the living room and cuddling with his wife and kids on the sofa and watching movies on the large screen television. He remembered breaking glass and screeching tires and a searing pain at the back of his head and the feel of flying helplessly through the air and he wanted to be home.

He turned again one street past the next, another right. Though instead of being home, he saw two wrecked cars in the middle of the next intersection, rain washing off their sides in streaks of red illuminated by neon lights of restaurants and gas stations. This was not home! He remembered his street and the nice houses and the children who played in the yards during the warm summer months, but this was not it! He was going home, why was he back near the accident he saw earlier? Had he walked in a circle? Unsure of his location, he simply walked toward the two cars and the crowd of police and onlookers surrounding them. The one was so familiar with its gray paint and burgundy interior and bent license plate. He remembered picking out the gray and burgundy at the dealership and asking his wife if she liked it. He remembered the woman he had seen in the car earlier and her mangled form and how she had reminded him of someone he knew and how the dead children in the back seat resembled his own kids. He remembered staring at the accident and the people asking if he was alright and wondering why they cared and the blood that spilled from the wound at the back of his head and the slippery road and the many police cars that still filled the intersection. He remembered a heavy impact and breaking glass and screeching tires and a searing pain at the back of his head and the feel of flying helplessly through the air and wanting to be home with his family and longing to be warm and painless. He remembered bright neon lights and pouring rain and French fries and movies and tires sliding on puddles and a woman screaming and children crying and pools of blood and sirens ringing loudly in his ears and crashing through a wall of glass to land face first in puddles on the black pavement and losing consciousness and everything around slowly blending together with the blackness of the cold, wet sky.

Coming closer he saw black bags covering the forms of people beneath, pouring rain washing over the sides and forming puddles surrounding each one. The wind carried the rain into his back, rinsing the wound on his head.

Someone came up to him and placed a blanket over his shoulders, “Here,” she said, “maybe this will help. You look like you’re freezing.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, without thinking about the answer. A thousand memories seemingly belonging to someone else raced through his head. “I think I’m a little cold.” His eyes were transfixed on the intersection.

“Let me see your head,” she continued, then examined his wound. “Sir, we’re going to have to get you to a hospital immediately. Come on, there is an ambulance over here.” She put her arms around his shoulders, probably to keep him standing, he thought.

“But I just want to go home,” he argued, his voice lacking the conviction it held earlier. “Can’t I just go home? My wife is going to be worried.”

And as the woman remained silent trying to steer him away, all he could do was stare at the cars fused together in the intersection, a bloody cross amid wet blackness and artificial light. There was so much he remembered, but perhaps it was better to forget. He still was not sure, but now, for some reason, he feared that he had finally come home.

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