I Write

It was a nice, sunny, day. No clouds, fair temperature. It was so nice she decided to take her kids out to the park. It was only a few blocks down the road. She got her stroller ready. Extra diapers, formula, blankets. She nestled her oldest child into the buggy, and gently gave him his pacifier. He started to suckle contently. She stroked the side of his face, and he leaned his face into her palm. His eyelids drooped slightly. With her first child secure, she goes to prepare her second child. An infant. She wraps takes the baby hammock out of the drawer and fastens it around her. She checks to make sure it’s on right and secure, the last thing she wants is an accident to happen to her pride and joy. Her entire world. She carefully picks her baby up, and lovingly snugs her in the hammock. The baby is in a natural hugging position, and her mother loves every bit of it. She puts her shades on, grabs the back of the stroller, and pulls it out the front door. Making sure the door stays shut behind her, she makes her way down the sidewalk. The birds chirping everywhere, the cars driving by on the road, the stroller wheels on the sidewalk, conversations from people all around. Ambient noise. Music. To her ears. They made it down to the end of the block, where the traffic lights are. She pushes the button like always and waits for the “don’t walk” to change to “walk”. Eventually, it does. She starts pushing the stroller across the street, looking down at her babies and smiling the whole time. She only saw the top of her infants head while she was cozy in the hammock, and the top of the sun guard of her stroller, when she heard a high pitched screech. There was no time to comprehend anything, she was already laying on the ground. Screams and cries filled the air that was, just a second ago, filled with birds and ambient conversation. The loudest of which was of her infant. Actually screaming for her dear little life. Mother, on the other hand, wouldn’t have known. She only heard a high pitched tone. A tone that gradually got quieter, letting the shrieks of her daughter deep through. Muffled. She tries to lift an arm up to feel the hammock, but only her arm from the elbow up came off the ground. Her bones sticking through the skin. She tries to move her other arm, but to no avail. It’s been completely crushed, if she even still had it. She couldn’t tell. She tried to wiggle her toes, but was unable. Her legs are useless now. If they were even still there. In a final fit of desperation she rolls her head to the other side she was facing. She noticed the stroller, crushed and mangled, dripping red liquid from the handle into a puddle of red liquid surrounding the annihilated baby stroller. The puddle seems to be growing, creeping in all directions from its source. She also noticed she could see everything in the direction she was just facing. The image of the bloody stroller, and the image of the blood stained concrete on the opposite side she is facing merge and twist. She can feel fluid coming from her eye, she realises it’s not where it’s supposed to be. That’s the least of her concerns. If all she loses from this is an eye she would consider herself the luckiest person on the planet. But she isn’t. She realises even if she survives, the likelihood of both of her children surviving were slim to none. She can still faintly hear the cries of one of her children. She opens her mouth, jaw quivering, teeth chipped and broken, some missing altogether, blood oozing from empty sockets, in an attempt to say something comforting to her panicked and hurt child. Her lungs only fill partly with air before violently coughing, choking, on her own blood. She tries to say something again, and only coughs more blood. And more blood. Her eye focused on the ruined and bloody stroller, still seeing an image of what’s behind her through her other. Darkness started creeping in on the edges of her vision, making its way to the centre. The muffled cries and shrieks get quieter. She starts to feel cold.