Essay On The Day My Friend Was Shot

The violence has become an internal part of our social life nowadays. We see it everywhere: we read about it, watch the news and our favorite series. The problem, however, is not in this, but in how we perceive such type of behavior. The scenes of murders, mockery, attacks and all the sorts of assaults we consume as an already usual thing. It always seems that these stories are so far away from you, on the other side of the screen, in written plots of producers and newsmakers. You feel so safe, sitting on your old brown sofa in your newly decorated living room that no blood on the screen can terrify you. They have caught the assaulter, they have saved the victim, but they have never let you see what is hidden behind the curtain. After each next episode or news announcement you just turn your television or computer off and go back to the real life without knowing anything about how to actually react if such situation occurs in everyday life. Surely, because it is not real and can never happen to you. Well, until it actually happens.
I used to live this secure life without an odd though that people on the screens with all their crimes could meet me on the street. Yes, we always get hundreds of warning from our parents that it is dangerous to walk at nights, that this part of the city has a bad reputation, that in the neighbor town they found a body of a dead girl of my age. I never really listened. Of course, I nodded politely, exclaiming that our world is so cruel, but never really believed in it. So I continued my night crawls home, with friends or alone, exposing myself so naively to the city, that it finally showed me its teeth.
This day has settled in my memory as a bothersome bug that accidently got into your room in the summer evening. You try to chase it away, it annoys you, makes you feel uncomfortable, but will never leave until you finally calm down and give it some time. Oh, how I would hope that the time is the cure that I need from this day.
Our day was actually about to finish: we had an amazing chill Sunday with my friend when you go out in the morning, taking a coffee to go and let the sunshine soak into your skin. It was simply fresh, positive and moving day, so we exhausted ourselves with this joy and were walking home after some frozen margarita in the newly opened bar downtown. Now I often ask myself why we were walking. Why did we not take a bus or caught a taxi? All the thoughts of this evening usually start with “what if”. But we were walking because it was what we wanted to do and who would ever know where we would end up in the end.
We were passing through the old park, near the dusty old bar. These bars are usually having this feeling of constant dirtiness, given the time and a hint of whiskey and beer, spilled on the counter. Sometimes there is even a lonely slot machine with blinking lights of lemon, cherry and a joker on it. One of such bars was exactly the one we were passing by, and the blinking light just got into my eyesight when I suddenly realized something went wrong.
The man ran out of the bar, followed by the other two. There was something from wild cats in their behavior as if they did not know where to throw their energy. It was clear that they have done something bad as the tallest guy hold a big bag that you actually see on the screen when people rob the place. While their eyes were desperately prowling around, trying to estimate the situation we have frozen on the place with bated breath. The man who ran out first has noticed us and I have noticed he was holding a gun. I often ask myself why I have not remarked this detail in the first place. Perhaps, because the eyes of the assault looked at us first, filled with fierce and agony. After that, we faced the gunpoint that expressed absolutely the opposite – calm and coldness.
The time was slowing down and then going super fast as if someone had a TV remote. I gasped in a shock and my friend immediately reacted by pushing me aside and trying to cover us from the robbers. I have fallen into the bushes, scratching my hands and face with the small branches. Then I have heard a shot of a gun. It was only one but the noise of it was giving echoes in my head over and over again. I also heard the men’s screams, followed by their running away footsteps. I think I have not fallen until the very end, as soon as I took a suffocating breath I pushed myself out of the bush and looked around, just like that man nearly did, in desperation.
My friend was lying on the ground, moaning through his clenched teeth. He was shot in the leg and the blood was quickly spreading over his jeans and coloring the light gravel on the pavement. Without any thought I rushed to him, trying both to grab his head and examine his leg. It seemed as the reality around me collapsed. There was me, my bleeding friend and a blurry surrounding with everything mashed up: the bar, the park, the air. I felt small explosions all inside my body, in every part of it. The thoughts were rushing with the incredible speed: I need to tie the wound, we need to call for help, I have a blood, blood on my hands and it is trickling, warm, the blood of my friend. I looked in the eyes of my friend and surprisingly, his level of panic was lower than mine. Probably he was partially blinded by the pain of the shot or I simply took all the panic attack on my count.
The pale and trembling bartender were calling for the ambulance. I was somehow calling for the God. My friend was trying to move and distract himself from the pain. All the situation reminded of a chaos that happened from nowhere in the calm neighborhood where the lights just went on and the life was slowing down. I suddenly thought about our parents, about all the talks we had and what a shock it will bring to them. I had no thoughts about my possible friend’s death or mine. Somehow all my usual skeptic suggestions vanished, leaving the clear sureness that we all are going to be fine. It happens to me often when I first think I have lost something. Whenever I do not feel this snap off feeling inside – I will find the missing thing. The same was here; I had no fear of losing my friend. Now I often ask myself what if it was an overabundance of adrenaline.
When the ambulance and the police came, everything seemed to get structured somehow. As soon as they arrived we knew the algorithm of our actions, followed by the sound of a police radio, the warming blanket from the ambulance, the smell of medicines.
After this night, we have not spoken about it a lot with my friend. We do not feel the necessity. I have remarked that he has become more thoughtful, flying away in his thinking and absently returning when you call him. Every time we now watch something together, I see him cringing like from something disturbing when they shot the gun on the screen. I feel him, he is a survival. Everyone see the shots, nobody tell you how to live after you had one.
I believe that we will find a way out, because I have this feeling inside of me, like when you have not lost a thing. My friend just needs more time, and I need to stop asking myself these often questions.