As I write I hear the quiet.
Bits of traffic is amplifying the quiet.
The quiet is humming with noise in the air.
The night sky : BLACK!!!

Moments ago, with one ear bud in place I listened to music, but then was startled abruptly by a huge tearing, scraping, BANG of a ruckus! I didn’t think it important at first, only that of which might have been the common sounds of the average truck’s trailor hitting a pot hole in the busy street we overlook. Then I thought the sound more familiar than that, and something I had heard 15 years ago before.

So I stood up, from my home office’s chair, on tippie-toes I stretched my calves and hung over my bulky mahogany desk to peer out my bedroom window to see anything out of the ordinary.

There was the common car driving past, the traffic lights at the intersection changing, and the average joe walking by. Nothing odd at all, just the regular sights in our "usually" noisy neighborhood.

So I sat back down, thinking nothing, but wondering something I felt a sinking sickening feeling deep-down inside. And then I wondered if I had heard right. If it were only a pot-hole and nothing more? I told myself ‘it was nothing’.

Then that’s when the siren filled the quiet, getting louder and louder it approached and passed. Its lights illuminating the black. I jumped up again from my seat, this time a little faster, and stood to peer out the window. My eyes squinted a bit as I strained to follow the curvature of the lit truck, a large firetruck, approaching the intersection. Thinking and wondering if what I thought I’d heard was really a reality I watched, part of me hoping the truck would stop at the intersection.

It did.

That’s when my stance turned into a kneel. I hopped onto my desk, kneeling, to see if I could get closer to the window in order to see more, but couldn’t. So I grabbed my camera and slippers, ran downstairs and onto the patio, where I stood watching.

By this time the firemen were cleaning up the scene and taking pictures. I took a couple pictures too, but it was too dark outside and the accident too far away to really see details. Then the smell of pot filled the air and I thought it my time to go back inside, where it smelled much better!

While on the patio…

I stood there.
in the black.
and prayed.
Prayed that no one was hurt bad.
and if someone was taken home to see our Maker, that they knew Him!

and that’s when I thought, life is short, we could be taken anytime, anywhere within seconds.

15 Years Ago…

I was, 13 years old, raspberry picking when I heard the same sound I heard tonight. Although, back then I said it sounded like a helicopter flew down and ripped the roof off a car. I think I was imagining an Eagle ripping it’s prey with it’s huge talons or something, because how else could a helicopter so life-like rip the roof off a car?

I heard the sound, looked up and saw a motorcycle sliding across the road in front of me, with no one on it and thought that strange. So I yelled kind of laughingly and said to my mom, "hey Mom, look at that! There’s a motorcycle sliding down the road with no one on it!" She hysterically and quick to action, jumped so fast out of that row of raspberries, that there could have been a gigantic flesh eating bee near her, but that’s when I saw, what I imagine she saw, a man walking down the side of the road holding his arm. My mom ran toward the man holding his arm and that’s when I saw another man limping very slowly following. The men walked to about where their bike had stopped sliding and stopped, my Mom was quickly approaching and I not too far behind followed her!

My mom on reaching them, assisted each man down to the ground saying to me now right beside her, "Demara take his other arm" and together we helped the young men down. The driver kept saying, "now my parents won’t let me have a bike for sure!"

Our relatives that owned the farm came out with a first aid kit and my mom did first aid on the driver’s arm. His bone was protruding from his elbow and bleeding! I thought it kind of neat to see at the time. While my mom was doing this, she heard that the bike was still running, so she yelled at me to turn it off. I ran over there and turned the key. We didn’t want an explosion now did we?

By the time, my mom had almost finished disinfecting and bandaging up the one man’s arm, the paramedics were on scene to do their work, of which we watched. It was pretty neat and a bit strange to hear the Paramedics ask the men what day it was, and to hear them answer with a totally different date then what it actually was.

It turns out the motorcycle driver went too fast around the corner, that the bike sliding underneath them, caused them to be dragged along the cement for awhile until the bike took off without them! I’m not sure if the driver had his motorcycle license either, but I’m glad we were there to help!

See berry picking can be a lot of fun, when you’re 13 years old!!!