So I said early on that I was going to write as part of my regimen of getting back to work and keeping my creativity sharp. I’ve decided to post some of the resuls…. if you decide to comment, please be honest, but not too blunt if you don’t like it. Thanks…

There is a road I used to take on the way home at night. The shadows moved strangely there, getting out of the headlights just before I got to them like people moving quickly across the street. One night, one of them didn’t move fast enough.

My tires screetched as I jammed on the brakes, but I was way to late for that. The thump and crunch sounds as I hit the man I will never forget. The soft but solid thump of his body being hit by my car sounded like someone hitting a large plastic garbage can. The crunching snapping sounds of my car’s bumper being smashed in happened at the same time, but seemed much less important than the living thing that I had just hit; so the sounds of the body sound louder in my mind even today. I barely felt the car slow.

I wasn’t trying to hit anyone, I was actually being fairly careful; since deer and other animals cross that road often at night. Even though I had my eyes out for those, the man surprised me. As soon as the car stopped, I turned off the car, set the hazards, and jumped out, trying to see if I could help, but knowing that hitting a person at 45 miles an hour, it was probably impossible that someone could survive. I was right, unfortunately.

The man lay there, dressed in a dark hooded overcoat, blood streaming from his head and face. His legs didn’t look right, and to be honest, I was surprised he was concious. He looked in pain, but didn’t scream out, or even moan. He made nearly no sounds at all. He seemed surprised to see me, when I looked him in the eyes. His mouth opened to say something, but he only choked a bit. The sound of his cough loud in my ears. Blood dribbled out of his mouth, and his eyes rolled up into his head. I lurched forward to help him, careful not to let him move in case it would hurt him more. When I touched him, my hands sank through, into, the back of his hooded head, and into his shoulder, then turned cold as ice in a moment. That’s when the man’s eyes locked onto mine, snapping back from his near seizure. They grew wide, and then he dissappeared. Yeah, you heard me right, dissappeared. Like a cloud of dark smoke, his body just popped. I knew he was dead, I don’t know how, or at least back then I didn’t, but I knew. As the last wisps of smoke floated away, a great contrast to the violent hit earlier, I looked into the broken headlight of my car, seeing for the first time the blood on the hood. It wasn’t much, and I might have missed it normally. As wired as I was though, it seemed to stand out like a neon sign. It was then that I felt like I was being watched, that something bad was coming my way.

It was then that I got in my car and sped away.