juxtaposition, okay

I do not know every­thing about the world. Tru­ly, for my­self, I seek to learn every­thing but claim to know noth­ing.

Late night, out with friends. Also, it was my first ever night out with flom­mist Bwargh von Mod­nar. From the ini­tial scan of the en­vi­ron­ment I wouldn’t have thought what would hap­pen was go­ing to hap­pen. Hon­est­ly, so much of it is a flur­ry.

It did not make sense. I re­mem­ber check­ing the phone and time seems to pass slow­ly.

1:18 to 1:23 to 1:47.

I sent mes­sages to a good friend of mine – I was hap­py to hear his mu­sic be­ing played. I sent oth­er notes. I was miss­ing an­oth­er friend.

The en­vi­ron­ment changed as the night was end­ing. Sud­den­ly, mu­sic was turned off, sev­er­al of the peo­ple who were in­side were now out­side.

I re­mem­ber hear­ing an iPhone ring and think­ing, as no one went to an­swer it, some­one is go­ing to take that ring­ing phone. And it hap­pened: The owner’s friend had his phone swiped but that’s not what sparked it. Guys were out­side al­ready fight­ing.

Then the own­ers be­came in­tense­ly an­gry, but stayed in­side. They didn’t act. There was a guy in a white tee and dark coloured jeans – I couldn’t tell if he was in­sti­gat­ing some­thing or some­one try­ing to keep the sit­u­a­tion calm. He was croon­ing through the night with, “mannnn, if you can’t be true to your­self how am I gonna know if you’ll be true to me?” He ap­proached the own­ers and said, “That’s why I don’t hang out with them, they al­ways on that dumb shit. But it’s gonna be chill talk to them when it’s over. You can get your phone back. They ain’t gonna do noth­ing.”

That’s when the own­ers walked to­wards the door and the gun­fire start­ed. I don’t hon­est­ly know how many shots there were. It seemed like a joke at first, but be­came real when it didn’t stop.

The gun­shots con­tin­ued. I was frozen. I didn’t know if I should flee to the out­side – be­cause the shots came from out­side. My feet moved for the side door. Peo­ple were scream­ing and run­ning out the back. In sec­onds, I was out­side as I heard a car peel­ing out of the lot.

The own­ers were scream­ing, vi­o­lent­ly run­ning around in dis­be­lief. A man was on the ground. Bleed­ing. In­side, some­thing shat­tered. An­oth­er guy was crawl­ing on the ground try­ing to stay out of the aim of who­ev­er could be aim­ing. I moved to­ward the back lot to make it to our car.

I re­mem­ber a pud­dle in the door­way that I stared into – afraid, hop­ing for a re­flec­tion.
 
 

That’s when the scream­ing girl ran in the door fran­ti­cal­ly beg­ging for the ad­dress. I did not know. I could not speak. She wasn’t there orig­i­nal­ly. Who was she?

Our car came to the door. I ran into it and quick­ly pan­icked as our dri­ver walked away. We need to leave, we need to leave, we need to get out of here. I be­gan to shake, breath­ing heav­i­ly. I kept try­ing to man­age my anx­i­ety. I had to hold it all in. Sec­onds took for­ev­er.

Our dri­ver was back in the car. I had no idea where he went. We drove a short dis­tance to the street, a truck blared its horn. The lights of the ve­hi­cle be­hind us were fright­en­ing me. I re­mem­ber get­ting to the street light and re­al­iz­ing we had to make a turn. I hat­ed that the light was red. Every­thing was over­whelm­ing, I swal­lowed. When the light turned green we were off, down the road, un­touched. The is­sues were with this crowd of peo­ple, we were no longer there. All the thoughts came, they made no sense to me.
 
 

And then we found the car on the side of the road, with a light post bent over it. In it was a woman with her three young chil­dren, flee­ing her own hor­ri­ble sit­u­a­tion.

The woman was un­harmed, but had bruis­es. They weren’t from her ac­ci­dent.

The chil­dren were in their PJs, no coats or any­thing. Bwargh gave her hood­ie to the 4‑year-old, told him he could keep it, “But the deal is – I’m a su­per­hero, and I get my pow­ers from the sweat­shirt, so you can keep it if you agree to fight crime.’ He agreed.

This fam­i­ly was so beau­ti­ful and alive. A re­birth. And we still had our own lives – so we were able to stop and help. We kept them warm in our car un­til the po­lice ar­rived.

These mo­ments. Watch­ing a young child pet the po­lice pup­py, talk­ing with them about any­thing that rep­re­sent­ed a light in their lives. And hold­ing the woman in my arms just to say she will make it was enough for me to feel okay.

—al­ley schef­f­ki

Flom­mist Al­ley Schef­f­ki is 21 years young, ‘I am the blue rose. Dies ist ein wun­sch für frei­heit.’ Copy­right © 2015 Al­ley Schef­f­ki. All rights re­served.

read bwargh’s version —

          juxtaposition, ıı  • • •

 

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