CRASH

You’re waiting at a bus stop in Leeds one evening. You’re tired, it’s raining, and the light has just about gone. The bus that was meant to have come ten minutes ago didn’t, and you’re hoping that the one due in five does. There’s a sound on the road and you look up from your phone to see a man walking along the road, dragging one foot a little behind him in a limp. He’s dressed in a black suit, that doesn’t quite fit him, and a pair of trainers, and you think he might have got both as handouts. The man has a frizz of hair, standing up as if he’s next to some great electrical current, despite the rain. You think about calling out to him that he’d be safer on the pavement, but you hesitate, because that might mean he comes over and talks to you, and you feel bad that you don’t want that to happen and you feel bad because even knowing that, you won’t change your mind. It’s too late anyway, there’s a screech of tyres and a dark Golf comes hurtling round the corner, driving too fast for the road and too fast for the wet surface, and you open your mouth but before you can say anything it hits the man, and sends him flying twenty feet into the air. The car skids, recovers, floors it, and is gone around the next corner almost before the man hits the ground. When it does, it’s the worst sound you’ve heard in your life, the crack of dry sticks, a wet thud like a melon dropped on concrete. The man lies in the road, his limbs broken into angles that should not be, his head twisted round. You are frozen in shock for a moment, then you look up and down the street, see there is no one there other than you, no one coming to his and your help, no one you can look to who would take charge, tell you what to do, take away responsibility. So you step out, but then freeze again. The man moves, on the shining wet tarmac. he brings an arm around from behind his back, and with a crick and a crack, straightens it back out again. His right leg untwists, and his left leg creaks round so that the knee and the foot point in the same direction again. The man stands up, lifts his hands to his head, and twists it back into place, facing forward. Runs a hand over his jaw, as if it were a little tender. He looks up and down the street, then looks at you. Smiles. Puts his finger to his lips. Shush. Shush. Then he walks on, dragging one foot a little behind him in a limp, his hair still standing up as if he’s next to some great electrical current, despite the rain that falls harder and harder now.