That Day
It happened that day.
Not on any other. Not on one where he would have been there. Not on one where he could have helped.
He wasn't there.
Alex felt his back slam into the wall of a house as he took an almost involuntary step away from the street, away from the chaos. No one noticed.
White cloths draped across bodies, hiding the empty faces and eyes he knew must be there. White of innocence, white of sorrow.
It happened that day, and Alex wasn't there.
Men and women dressed in the green clothes of paramedics bustling in and out of green and yellow ambulances, slowly covering the still masses in white.
Alex's hand tried to find something to hold on to, something to keep himself upright with. Nothing was there, nothing to help. Alex fell, knees hitting the pavement. No one noticed.
Groups of teenagers, children, moving out of the building in huddles. Others being attended to by those clad in green.
Black garbed men filing out of the school and taking up positions around the yard. Silent. Frightening. Powerful. Helpless.
All too late.
Children crying, clinging to each other, looking for comfort that no one could offer. Desperate screaming as a knife is efficiently removed from someone's arm.
No one had helped. Not in time.
White cloth upon white faces. Drops of invisible red on the dark ground. Invisible, but there.
Chaos.
Terror.
Disbelief.
Screaming.
Crying.
Chaos.
And Alex hadn't been there.
Cars arriving en masse. Children running to meet the ones that should know what to do. They had to. They were the parents. They could do anything.
Cars arriving en masse. Adults running to meet the ones that would tell the truth. They had to. They were the paramedics. They would know everything.
And Alex could only stay on his knees and repeat to himself: this isn't happening, this isn't happening, this isn't happening…
No one noticed.
Cries of happiness upon reunion.
Cries of grief upon absence.
Some celebrating survival, some mourning the dead. Families broken apart into pieces, others renewed in the knowledge that they still had each other. That they would still have each other tomorrow. Together for another day. The relief, and the subsequent guilt striking because others are not as happy.
Unfair.
Luck.
Green and yellow ambulances slowly moving away, some staying to watch over the remaining people; to clean up, to make amends, to forgive themselves. For they have lost. Parents standing in silence as the medics tell them why it had been too late, gazing down into the cold faces of their daughters and sons. Knowing that they had failed. Knowing that there must have been something, just one thing, which could have been done differently.
The constant 'what if' ringing in their minds, never to leave.
The school should have been safe. Should have, but wasn't.
Children bundled in thick blankets and hugged by their father and mother, screaming and crying for their friends; the lost ones.
And Alex hadn't been there.
It happened that day.
Not on any other. Not on one where he would have been there. Not on one where he could have helped.
And on and on he whispered insistently: this isn't happening...
On and on for those he had lost.