it was a Monday. a fairly normal sort of Monday. and I was sitting... quite normally... at the bus stop. waiting for... you guessed it... a bus! I happened to be in the midst of writing a letter to a friend of mine, and minding my own business. suddenly, I hear a man saying, "hello, ma'am... I need you to help me! can you help me?" or something along those lines. it almost felt like I was in slow motion... I'm sure it's because I'd been so deeply engrossed in the letter writing. I looked up.. first to his face... and then down, down.. down.... (all in slow motion) to the bloody hand he was cradling in front of him. there was a lot of blood. and it was dripping. dripping down, down... down (all in slow motion) to land *splat* on the cement. but it didn't stop there. oh no. from the *splat*, it continued to a splatter. a splatter the decorated itself on my toes... and feet.... and ankles. as all these slow motion things were happening in my world, his seemed to continue on at a normal speed... and when our speeds matched up again, I found that he'd never really stopped taking about what was happening and telling me that I had to do something. I finally opened my mouth and asked him what had happened. he explained how he'd taken the bandage off and then blood started squirting everywhere. yes, he used the word squirting. I looked at him, then back to his hand... then back to his.... and out came the words...... "well what do you want me to do?". (helpful and productive, I know.) he told me that I just had to help him (he even threw in a foul word... for dramatic effect I suppose) and that I had to do something.... go to my parents and get bandages or stitch it up or do something! I explained in a mildly exasperated tone that I was not from around there... I am Canadian. and I most definitely am not a nurse. I told him that there was a hospital nearby. that was not good enough I suppose.... he continued his dramatic, flustered begging and continued dripping blood that had to first *splat*, then splatter. onto my feet. I was becoming a little annoyed with his lack of listening or understanding. and by his insistence that I must DO something! finally, I could take it no longer. nor could I refuse him. the story of the good samaritan keep nagging in the back of my brains. sigh. so I jumped up and said, "okay! come-on!" we walked about 30 feet down the sidewalk to a restaurant... him still going on about it all. I tapped him on his arm and said, "wait here." and I waltzed into that restaurant, and right up to the bar, and asked for some napkins. one man ignored me as he thought I was just a person interrupting the flow of his day. (actually, I don't know what he thought. he may not have thought that at all) so I was a bit more demanding with the next man. I asked for some napkins and he said, "just a moment please." and I said, "there is a man bleeding outside. may I have some napkins?" that caught his attention, and he gave me a pile of them. then he picked up his plates of food and followed me out. his manager didn't much care to have the employee standing with the customers food and watching the excitement rather than doing his job. so now, I have the manager handy. I plopped the napkins on desperate-bleeding-man's hand and he tells me that he thinks the bleeding has stopped. I looked at this tiny little pinprick on the back of his hand (it must have gone to the vein to create that much blood... maybe an I.V....? I really have no idea..) and agreed. the manager told him how to get to the hospital and DBM (desperate-bleeding-man) says he's not going back to that hospital. ohh-kayyy then. I see how it is. the manager felt that he had done his duty, and waltzed off back to his job. and these ladies told me about a medical center down the street. I told the man how to get there, and told him that he really just needed to clean all that blood up, and maybe run it under cold water a bit and keep some pressure on it and he would be fine. he seemed grateful. and then, he went his way. and I went mine. back to my letter writing at my bus stop. the only change being the puddle of blood in front of me.
and, of course, the splatters.
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