In years prior, familiar highways were two-lane dirt roads. Our haughty, enormous airport was more humble and people got along just fine without cell phones. Technology had advanced enough to provide citizens with automobiles, but being typical humans they weren’t always as careful as they ought to be.
Wolfe had been invited to speak at the local college. He was to deliver a speech on literature: how to be a successful novelist without pandering to the public. None of this vegetarian werewolf or sparkling vampire nonsense that seemed to be sweeping the nation—real, substantial stories.
He prepared his speech in the back of the cab. Rearranging pages. Writing in margins. Going through the motions it takes to convince those surrounding that, yes, like you, I get nervous.
The cab driver glanced in the rear view and wondered if his passenger, for all his supposed worldly word knowledge, was familiar with the word “eyesore”. In his stark white suite, Wolfe definitely did well to get noticed.
Wolfe glanced out the dirty taxi window. Ahead, he saw a car on the side of the road. And another. And another. People, whom one could only assume were the drivers and passengers of said cars, were also on the side of the road and were standing, together. Looking at something just out of view.
Wolfe asked for the car to be stopped.
Rolling his eyes, the driver rolled his foot from the gas to the brake.
What the people were staring at, stagnant in their hesitance, was wreckage. A young man had flipped his car and was lying motionless in a pool of blood and glass beside it. Clearly wrought with worry for his wellbeing, the onlookers stood motionless, mumbling to themselves—to each other—but ultimately failing to put forth anything more.
Wolfe pushed past the people.
He tumbled gracefully down the small slope, his feet knowing well the combination of loose dirt and hurry. He tripped, fell to his knees beside the young man and felt immediately for a pulse. A fading moan escaped. Slight finger twitch.
“Has anyone gone for a doctor?”
He heard a door slam.
A car start.
No. No one had. Yet.
Without the promise of help in form of an ambulance wail, Wolfe took his coat off and wrapped it about the young man; bring him gently into his arms as he did so. He cooed kind words, hummed low the song “Trouble”, and rocked slightly.
How striking the scene, too.
Fretful and unmoving, the crowd remained. The stoic man in his once-white suit, now covered in deep bloodstains, presented an unfamiliar humanity.
When Wolfe looked up at them he spoke. And there was a tremor in his voice as he did so:
“And aren’t you ashamed?”
