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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