Witnessed

Today while sitting at a cafe around rush hour I witnessed an accident and wrote about it as the event unfolded less than 100 meters away. I wrote completely stream of consciousness, and while I did take some artistic liberties, because primarily the whole event took a long time and I needed an ending - I found the exercise helpful in helping me evaluate certain elements that make up a story. I typed the snippet below straight from my notebook, and have every intention of analyzing my work later when I'm not so tired and my belly is not so full of spicy kimchee chigae (Korean soup).
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Witnessed today: near Metro station Richelieu-Drouot, Paris 9eme

A woman on a motorcycle was hit from behind by a man on a moped. The sound of fiberglass hitting the pavement alerted me. The man took off his helmet and pulled the scratched and limp body of his bike off the path of the impending traffic. The woman was on her knees still in the road when the strangers rushed towards her.

At first seeing the motorcycle and because of the helmet I thought it was a young boy with slender feminine legs, but our waiter, who had dashed towards the scene, pulling the motorcycle up from its side said it was a woman. She did not remove her helmet and after being helped up slumped on the curb with her back to a partion on the sidewalk.

An ambulance was called and arrived shortly afterwards, but drove past the victim despite the handful of people who tried to flag it down. The paramedics, in fluorescent orange vinyl vests kneeled down on the ground to speak to the woman in concerned and hushed tones until one got up and spoke into his radio while he paced along the sidewalk agitatedly.

The traffic kept blocking my view. Taxi cabs, hurried commuters, and tourist buses with license plates from Spain and Estonia and even Poland with the name of the bus company written across the backside of the bus like a label on a pair of designer jeans. I got my glimpses and finally, an unobstructed view, though it didn't last. The ambulance had come around the corner to where the woman was and I no longer could see her.

From somewhere in the distance sounds of trumpets and maybe a trombone or a horn came to my ears and made me think of bullfights in Mexico.

The doors of the ambulance was opened soundlessly and then shut. The driver got behind the wheel and made notes with his clipboard steadied on the steering column.

The trumpet revelery heralded one of the paramedics opening the back door again and in the absence of traffic I hear the door close shut like the brutal burp of Tupperware.

I can see nothing else. I let the brass section seduce me into being optimistic, as if the music is dedicated to one woman's victory over high speed and concrete.

I see the paramedics bending through the windows of the ambulance. I see a smile, the boots of the girl just under the open back door as she climbs in. One paramedic is cradling the woman's helmet in his arms. A siren screams hysterical for a moment and stops abruptly. The music is fainter now as the police van arrives and the police officer climbs out of the van and into the ambulance through the side door. A female officer opens the back door and I imagine their questions cutting through the ambulance like a crosswind.

At the moment the ambulance is magically holding three paramedics, a male and female officer, a witness with big curly hair, and of course the woman whose face I have not seen like a stuffed up nose.

I can see the paramedics through the window where the glass is not frosted for privacy. The police officers exit single file and pile into the police van as if it were a clown car at the circus. The spinning blue lights stop. Both van and ambulance pull away; their engines humming and their exhaust pipes exhaling carbon dioxide like ordinary vehicles in the Parisian rush hour traffic.

Only the girl's motorcycle sits immobile and prone at the curb as if waiting for a ride home.