Ana Naddoush

I was walking down the street caught up in my own thoughts. Caught up in my own life. Not noticing a thing around me.

“BANG!!!”

Suddenly I was on the ground. Tumbling around. On my knees. Already sore and feeling the rising pain in my head. I opened my eyes but I couldn’t see a thing. My hand went to my face, feeling around. My glasses were gone. I must have lost them. Dropped them. Where were they?

I knew I was in the street, but somehow I couldn’t remember how I got there. And I couldn’t remember where I was going. Where was I going? What direction was I heading before it happened?

And what happened? The pain in my head grew bigger as I thought about it.

Then a voice cried out not too far from me. A male voice screaming and cursing loudly. He was obviously in pain. Like me. He cursed at me. Blamed me. We must have collided on the street. Head to head.

He kept talking. Angry and upset. I couldn’t focus. My head was exploding with pain, I couldn’t see anything and my glasses were out of reach. And all I could hear was him.

“STOP TALKING” I screamed out a little too loud. “I cannot focus with you screaming at me. I am sorry about your head, but I am in pain too. I don’t know what happened but I have to find my glasses and get off the street.”

He stopped talking.

I tried to focus. Where was I exactly? Where had we collided and where could my glasses have landed? Everything was a blur. A big mess.

As I sat there and let the quiet calmness settle, things started to come back to me. I came out of the little vacuum space and returned to the street. I could hear the cars again. The people passing. The birds. I could feel the sun on my face and the hard ground beneath me. I reached out and found my glasses. The blur disappeared. The street was clear again in front of my eyes.

I remembered from where I had come and where I had been heading. I remembered my way. My direction. I got up from the ground, my head still pounding with pain and a little bump on my forehead growing underneath my skin.

I set off in the direction I had been heading but then I stopped. I looked around and saw the angry man. Still sitting on the sidewalk holding his head with both hands.

I turned around and took a different road. A new road.