52nd and 3rd

Yesterday I watched as a girl no older than myself died on the streets of New York. I was stunned. I heard as she was hit by a car and could imagine her mother and sister turn around to find her no longer behind them. I did not see her fall.
She was dead in an instant, her mother and sister beating on her lifeless chest, screaming from where they sat around her on the curb. I doubt it was in the news: I wanted to check but did not have the heart. I did not even have the heart to stand with the gathering crowd, murmuring about the grisly city in which we live, the young life that gets taken unnaturally away.

For one of the first moments in my life, I felt utterly helpless. I could not resuscitate her. I could not comfort her mother and sister. They were tourists. I doubt they will ever return to New York. My heart fluttered, my hands icy and my thoughts swimming. I turned and walked away.

I took a long shower afterwards, in my newly renovated bathroom, suddenly feeling the weight of the water and needing to escape its hot pulsing grasp. I dressed slowly, looking out my open window before napping on my couch, teddy bear in arm: one that was wrestled from my closet shelf minutes before. I needed something to hold. I fell asleep beneath the window, the cooling New York air sweeping my drying hair back and forth across my face. I could not stop thinking about that girl.