It was on a crowded street and when he thought about it later, it was the balloons and streamers he remembered. Red, white and blue streamers and star-spangled balloons… and children lining the sidewalk with their freshly done hair and their Fourth of July faces. He likes to stop the memory there, just keep that picture of balloons and sunshine and a brass band playing as little girls twirled batons and the smell of hotdogs with ketchup and mustard… there was popcorn too. He remembers turning to Josh and saying that he could smell popcorn and that by presidential decree that meant he got some. He likes to stop the memory there.
Some days it won't stop, though, and through the strains of 'America, the Beautiful' he hears screams. It's all… in pieces after that. It's as if someone has torn a hundred snapshots in half and scattered them through his brain. Now he's not even sure what he saw that bright July afternoon and what he's seen since on a thousand news reports. When he thinks about it he sees a sudden blare of sunlight on a trumpet that spiralled in the air as its owner fell: a grey tweed sleeve half-covering his face as he was borne to the ground: a grotesque scattering of blood across the drifts of confetti on the ground: a torn cardboard poster with 'The Glorious Fourth' written on it in a childish hand. He still smells popcorn and hotdogs and bruised summer grass but now it's layered with the sudden sweat of fear, gunpowder's sharp burn and the bitterness of vomit. He would stop the memory there if he could, with him bundled on the ground beneath the men who train to take a bullet for him. He would stop there….
The memories don't. Now they spill out on fast replay. He is being dragged to the car; around him radios crackle and spit orders but his ears seem to recognise only the ringing of gunfire. Someone's sobbing – somewhere near him, he thinks – but further away someone screams, over and over again, voice tearing and breaking. As they push him into the car, he sees the river of blood that is darkening the ground. As they push him into the car and push him down behind the seats, he sees Josh's shattered face.
For a long time the memories did stop there; that was where he would wake up sick and shaking or where he would stop and lean carefully against something and force himself to take slow breaths, praying no one would notice his pallor or sheen of sweat. Now, with a detachment that sometimes worries him, he can remember the rest. He had used his power to see Josh in the morgue over everyone's protests and warnings. It is not that cold, almost faceless corpse that haunts his dreams, though. He was cleaned up and cool to the touch - and remote beyond love or pain. It is the Josh they left behind on the ground in a welter of blood, one breath away from breathing that hurts.
He remembers standing in a Des Moines hospital in a silent room that smells of bleach, so cold he can feel the faint warmth of the three protection agents clustered around him. He remembers touching his friend's hand in an unbelieving farewell and then pushing aside a little the sheet that covered Josh's body. He remembers standing there looking at him, and reaching out to touch the scar that split his chest, the scar from the first time Josh had taken a bullet serving a president. He remembers weeping.
That is his last memory of his friend, the place where the memories do stop.
As they drove to the airport through an afternoon that was to his unspoken surprise still golden with only a faint breeze disturbing the early July warmth, as they drove down streets still decked in flags and with posters advertising firework displays, it was the balloons and streamers he remembered, star-spangled balloons and sunshine and a brass band playing….