Driving home

The other night my sister and I had a little barbecue thing at my parents house. Nothing major, just a few friends over, a couple of beers, some conversation. Now, my parents live in a really nice area of town. Nice quite neighbors, big houses, nice lawns. The sort of place you'd like your kids to grow up living.

As we were driving home, at the place where the small road meets the main one, I prepared to make that familiar right. To my left I see a plice car approaching, lights strobing, no siren. I figure I'll wait for him to pass. Especially since I'm driving with a busted tail-light. As he gets to the place where I'm waiting, he comes to a stop, pulls a u-turn across the median, and the sight that is illuminated by his headlights is something I wish I had never seen: A dead man, lying at the curb, the back of his head a collage of blood and bone. A woman stood above him, phone to her ear, dressed in a ragged old robe. She wasn't screaming, she wasn't crying, she was just gone. Blank and ashen and vacant.

I don't know these folks, but I've seen the guy before. He's her son, I think. I don't know what happened. Maybe it was just a hit and run, maybe it was a shooting. Hard to say, but all I know is that I never wanted to witness it. The blankness of mother's empty stare, the twisted remains of a son whose life was cut unexpectedly short.