What becomes of the broken-hearted.

I checked.
It wasn't in today's paper.
Suicides usually aren't.
People don't like to read about other people wanting to die.
Attempted suicides are even worse.
A botched desperate act.
That's even harder to read about.
Everyone involved ends up grateful for the ignorance.
Everyone accept me.
Wait-- except.
Accept, too.
We're OK now.
Right?

I wouldn't have known it happened if I hadn't received a phone call yesterday. A buddy of mine rang me up to tell me about what he'd seen on the side of the highway while coming home from work. He started to describe it, but it didn't register. That could've been anybody. Commuting sounded a whole lot more dangerous than it already was.

"Wait, so his face was crushed in?"
"Yeah. He was all banged up. Soaked in blood."
"Was he moving?"
"Not really. All his limbs were visibly broken."
"How'd you know he was alive?"
"His chest was rising."
"Jesus..."

My friend and his coworker were driving home together when they saw a car pulled over in the shoulder of the interstate. Then they saw the man sprawled out next to it. One of them was a fireman so they stopped. Both of them were human so I'm surprised they didn't keep going. I bet they wish they had.

"A woman was parked a hundred feet ahead of us."
"She's the one that hit him?"
"No. That was the box truck parked ahead of her."
"Jesus..."

His voice was surprisingly solid. If I'd been the one to witness the aftermath of a man being mowed down by a truck I'd probably be stuttering and grasping for words that wouldn't come. But maybe not. Maybe in seeing something as tragically real as that you're instantly forced to accept it as fact and present it as such. There's no way to avoid it affecting you in the long run, but regurgitating the events might be easier than assumed. Or maybe television really does desensitize us.

"What'd you do?"
"Put our jackets on him to keep him warm."
"Then what?"
"That lady walked over and told us what happened."
"Wasn't it obvious?"
"Not entirely. The guy ran in front of the truck."
"You're kidding."
"I'm serious."
"And the truck driver?"
"Some young black kid. Barely twenty-one, probably."
"He must've been a wreck."
"He kept repeating that the man jumped out."
"He'll be scarred for life."
"I don't think I'd be able to drive again."

There. Proof that my first theory was correct, cynicism be damned.

"But how did you know it was intentional?"
"There was a note on the seat of his car."
"What'd it say?"
" 'Call Ellen', with a phone number."
"Jesus..."
"Jesus didn't help any."
"He hasn't in awhile."

Neither of us knew what else to say about it, so we didn't.
That's a rare quality.
Find it.
Embrace it.

I don't know if the man died, but he doesn't deserve to.
He deserves far worse than that for his sins.
Blowing your head off is one thing, your Right in my book.
There's no cowardice in calling it quits after an honest try.
Risking the lives of others, however, is unpardonable.
He's lucky that no one else was hurt in the process.
I hope he's a vegetable for the rest of his life.
Even my pity goes only so far.

But he's not the real victim.
Neither is the truck driver, nor his wallet after the therapy.
Ellen's got it the worst.
She's the one who got that phone call.
She's the one who didn't believe her ears.
She's the one who may've never even heard from him in years.

Guilt is a hell of a thing to live with, whether it's warranted or not.
We regret the things we didn't do more than the things we did.
Maybe Ellen will regret not trying harder.
She'll age less than gracefully.
She'll die, too, though only on the inside at first.

And therein lies the problem.
"We're all dead and we don't even know it yet."
Sometimes I hate being right.