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A little boy stands at the edge of the footpath, looking straight ahead. Cars zoom past. Red, blue, silver flashes blur around the edge of his vision. The little boy doesn’t waver. His gazed is fixed directly at the opposite side of the road. One particular spot.

But what is he staring at? With all the traffic and pedestrians on the other side, it’s impossible to tell. His orange jacket is just about enough to make him stand out in the bustling rush hour crowd. Nobody is looking at him. He is a single, short forlorn outline against a harsh urban background. And I can tell that something bad is going to happen. It’s just a matter of time before he steps out into the unforgiving line of zooming vehicles. If he’s lucky, it’ll be a bicycle that hits him. If you could call that luck.

And where am I in all of this?

I’m standing in the window of my fifth floor apartment, overlooking the pavement. And I’m screaming and screaming but no sound is coming out of my gasping throat. If this is a dream, it’s not a very convincing one. I don’t know how long passes while I stand in the window. My feet don’t move until the car hits him. Then I’m running, running, running toward the phone.  My voice has come back and the words flood out of my mouth like a river from behind a burst dam. I shout the street name at the paramedic and hang up.

Rushing back to the window, I am filled with violent self-loathing. I stare down into the street, past the pedestrians, between the lines of traffic.

There is no little boy down there.

That’s when the doorbell rings. 

Reviews

[pia Z]

Interesting! I recommend fleshing it out a lot more, though; it's such a quick read that a lot of the substance can get lost. I like the fact that you've equated watching this accident to having a dream. You've done a great job of capturing that syrupy feeling you get when you're dreaming of peril, or you're about to watch something terrible unfold. One question - your narrator is screaming, screaming, and yet he/she isn't convinced by the dream. The screaming makes it sound like he/she IS convinced, otherwise why scream at all? Just a minor detail.

Also, and here's my point about extending the piece a bit - you spend a lot of time simply describing the boy and what's happening and what's about to happen, but little else. I think you can really get into this and make it about so much more; maybe it's a story about the narrator, and witnessing the accident is a kind of turning point in her/his life. Or maybe the narrator isn't changed at all and is perhaps repulsed by that idea. There's so much to play with. You've scratched the surface and I strongly urge you to re-think this and give it a lot more attention; it's a lovely start!

Thank you for sharing this! :)