Bystander

He checks the papers the next morning but there's nothing, not even in the locals. He goes over them twice just to be sure. He figures this is good news, it probably means that the boy survived. Surely if he'd died there would have been some mention of it in the paper. Wouldn't there?

Maybe he should have stayed, should have waited around to see what happened. Though it probably wouldn't have helped. And besides, he didn't want to be one of them, the crowd, all those people with their ghoulish curiosity, gathered around the accident site like a flock of vultures. No, not vultures, exactly, more like crows, waiting to snatch some tidbit to take home to their families. A murder of crows. The very thought of it makes him sick. And to be mistaken for one of them! For that is how they would have seen him, wouldn't they - the medics, the police - shouting move along people nothing more to see here. The very idea was intolerable. If only there were some way to signal the purity of his intentions, the sincerity of his concern, of his sympathy. But it was impossible.

So, better to have come away then, throwing barely a glance at the boy lying in the middle of the road, his bicycle crushed beside him, a puddle of blood spreading under his head. But what if someone saw him, thought him callous, unfeeling? No, of course not. Everyone would have been focusing on the accident. No one would have been paying attention to him.

Except he himself. Isn't that why he wants to find out what happened to the boy? To appease his own conscience, prove to himself that he did care? Or is he just like the others, driven by a morbid desire to observe the suffering of others? No, it's not that. He really felt for that boy, for his parents. When he got back home he almost felt like crying.

If only he could find out what happened to the boy, whether he made it or not. Maybe if he searches on the Internet. There must be something about the accident somewhere. Someone must have covered it. What do they all do, anyway, these reporters? Sit around writing stupid opinion pieces or gabbing about the first lady's clothes. A boy is injured, maybe even killed, and they don't even report it? Maybe he should do a little investigative journalism of his own. They must have taken the boy to a hospital nearby. He could try calling the hospitals, ask if a little boy was brought in yesterday - a hit and run - and what happened to him. If someone asks who's calling he can always claim to be a reporter for some newspaper.

No, better not. They may be able to trace the call back to him. He could get into trouble. They may even think he was involved in some way, maybe he was driving the car or something. Better let it go. It's none of his business. Besides, the kid's probably okay. And maybe the accident just happened too late in the day to make the papers. Maybe there'll be something about it in the papers tomorrow. He should just wait and see.