Body Bag

Date: 2/3/2019

How many times do I have to see the face of death. Death is not a romantic last ditch effort to change the world. I don’t know why we were on the road that day. We were headed back to our home town and I had a very important bag in my lap. It felt like any other bag, but the way that she set it down in my lap and looked at me I could tell I needed to keep it safe for her. Somehow it felt like a summer day, because I could feel the warmth around me and somehow my world seemed closer than normal. I had this unusual shortness of breath or a tightness in my chest. It felt like anticipation and regret rolled into one. I wasn’t really sure why i felt this way but I knew my head felt like a mess. Amy wasn’t saying a word the whole ride, it seemed to her like she was counting the miles in her head, but before I could work up the courage to say something we were already on familiar roads. As we rolled into our hometown I noticed the town was in a panic. I mean somehow I was driving and I was speeding, other cars were paying no attention to their surroundings. I had one car pull out of a parallel park right into me, then glare at ME. I mean there were cops everywhere, I thought somehow the state fair came into town and we were here for it. I blew past a cop, as I swerved into oncoming traffic because another car cut me off in a merge, but the cop went and pulled a different car over for going practically 100 in a 35 zone with heavy traffic. I’m like what’s going on, but Amy had us park and suddenly the streets are clear of cars and there are people fishing off of the bridge in town, people are walking around talking excitedly or briskly walking across the street. Everyone was obviously excited about something, but I didn’t even notice. Hell it all looked normal to me because all I could think about was Amy why don’t you notice me? What is in the bag? I’m sorry I’m a horrible driver. If only I could actually ask Amy these things but soon a cop stops us. Guess what he asks us? What’s in the bag? I’m curious too but I don’t open it. He asks for me to hand it over for and for some reason I knew that there was a gun in there so I told him and handed it over. Amy seemed nervous opening the bag, she was starting to tell this story about fishing when coach walks up. Apparently he had been expecting Amy and he basically dismissed the cop, but the cop had pulled out a folder from the bag. He started rifling through it and started to read a letter written on it. Coach was close by slightly intrigued by the letter and as the cop read the letter more it was clear it was a letter for help. She was trying to find a place to stay, she couldn’t be with me anymore, it just wasn’t working, wasn’t safe and not in the physical sense but more of a lifestyle choice. The last sentence started to rhyme and before we knew it she was singing along to the song, that apparently was written out of Pokémon cards to rhyme. I couldn’t understand, Amy wouldn’t look at me and coach just stared at me, and I told him I didn’t understand, all I did was care for her, love her, think about her every minute. Even as I said the words they sounded wrong though. Coach told me that THAT was why Amy couldn’t be with me anymore, she needed her space and that I needed to give that to her. It seemed like they were tearing her right away from me, but just as I started to argue I noticed across the bridge that there were several onlookers, a couple of cars stood still faced in impossible ways and as I came closer I noticed that there were bodies in the street. Cop bodies. Blown off faces immediately took my breath away, the blood was basically black, nearly indistinguishable with the concrete, but clearly there. There was another car, this time it was a Camero with the lid up. You could see copper on the inside. It was hard to see but I could see what looked like copper closer to the ground too. I didn’t quite understand what it could have been until I saw that a twisted body lay upside down, the lid of the head blown back and a copper color mixed with a dark blood lay strewn out on the pavement. It was clear that this was cop suicide. I felt sick inside. I couldn’t register that I had seen brain in real life. No one seemed to know why or what had happened. We all just stayed at a “safe distance” from the mess. I walked back across the bridge to find Amy and the coach and didn’t see them, but I saw the cop getting surrounded a bit by people begging him for answers and I quickly felt myself get surrounded. This one guy started laughing at me. He said “Hey you are that guy from the video, I watched that!” He proceeded to jeer me as I tried to blow him off. He thought I wasn’t a man because I couldn’t handle a little blood. Basically I grabbed him and tried to show him the brain. I said “No one can get close to the brain, not even you, do you want to end up matching your car?? Go on if you think you can handle it go over there, get up close, look closely at the brain cause that can be you someday! You keep threatening people with guns that will be you!”