Anna was about twelve years old when she discovered that she had absolutely no idea what she thought about life, in general. I imagine this is a fairly normal thought to pass through a twelve-year-old brain, since twelve year olds are… well, you know how they are.
But we will not spend so much time talking about your average twelve year old, because Anna was quite far from average. In fact, she was the antidote to average. I am certain that at the moment you do not understand the implications of this statement at the moment, but one day you will.
Now as twelve year old Anna was thinking about this, she was walking down something not entirely unlike a sidewalk in the dead cold of the night. Up until this point, I suppose she rather had been your normal, average twelve year old, but it is entirely likely that this was the moment that changed the entire course of her life. We all have those moments, as I am certain you already know, dear one. But most of us continue on as being quite average, indeed, whereas Anna did not.
For it’s at that moment – when you decide exactly what life is – that you decide who you will be, and what you are going to live for, that you decide whether or no you are going to continue on being average or not. And Anna decided not to be average at all. Because when faced with this thought, what she thought about life, she decided that she thought life was something to be attacked and taken for one’s own, while most decide that life is something more to go by silently and passively as they watch, never reaching even for the tip of it.
It is consistently amazing how, when one decides that life is something to be grasped, and time is something to be taken, and experiences are something to be, well, experienced, that life does indeed conform itself to the user’s wish. And that very afternoon, Anna found the one thing that would change her life more than anything else ever would, or even could.
It was only a mangled heap when she found it. Most wouldn’t have looked twice at it, because generally we humans pay very little attention to anything at all. But as we remember, Anna had suddenly become something quite different than average. Because of this, she saw more than, say, you or I would have. A mangled heap of red, yellow, and blue, bleached by the sun, stained by dirt and some blood of the previous owner set near the dumpster, abandoned. Most twelve year olds would have been a tad put-off by the blood. Anna was not. She barely noted this, til she was close enough to see the mangled heap of a man beneath the mangled heap of colorful fabric.
She studied him for a few moments in wonder, pondering who he was, what he was, what had happened to him, and last, what circumstances had collaborated to bring him to the position he was now in. She knelt next to him, examining his handsome face. He was young, she noted, far too young to be covered in the blood and bruises he now was. Older, though, than she was. His face was rough and unshaven, and his lips parted, just barely, pulling in a struggling, gasping breath. She leaned back in some surprise that he yet retained any life at all.
Deep blue eyes flicked open quickly, and the man sat up with a scream of pain. Looking her in the eyes, he spoke, “for Christ’s sake, child, call an ambulance.”
And in this moment, she was very much a twelve year old. She pulled a cellular phone from her pocket and dialed 911 with trembling fingers, mesmerized by the destroyed man in front of her.
In years to come, she would not be able to clearly remember anything that happened between her finger hitting that last one and the sound of the sirens coming to that place. In her mind, it remained a mess of the man’s screams, cries, and prayers as he slowly gave into the agony of his wounds. At moments, he looked at her, his eyes seeming clear, and his mind awake, and told her things in a very factual manner that did not make any sense to her at all. She smiled, though, and nodded, as he told her these things. She would remember all of this to some extent, the screaming, the crying, the nodding, the smiling, the way those too-blue eyes lit up like Christmas day in his moments of what he saw as clarity and she as lunacy.
The medics loaded his body onto a gurney as she watched. They asked her questions; too many, too fast, and without answers. She would remember very little of this, as well. She did not know the answers. She did not know where he was from or how he had come here. She had not even thought to ask his name.
What happened next, though, she would remember with upmost clarity until the day she died.
“Anna!” the man screamed desperately.
Her eyes flicked toward him, lying there, strapped in, helpless, “me?”
“Anna,” he gasped, “you cannot let them take it. You have to help me. Swear you will help me,” he reached for her hand and wound his fingers through hers, “swear to me, Anna, promise me that you won’t let them know, that this will be our secret. You and me, Anna, you and me,” he struggled to breathe.
A medic interrupted, “we need to get you to the hospital, sir.”
“She comes with me!” he yelled, tears streaming down his face, his voice breaking on the last syllable.
The medic looked at the young girl rather skeptically, perhaps trying to gauge her attachment and connections with a man whose name she did not know. Perhaps the medic was worried, as well he had reason to be, for this was far from a common experience, as I am certain you have already discerned.
Anna had not thought it at all strange that the man knew her name, and she did not know why, in retrospect. She stared into his eyes, wondering whether he was a lunatic, but feeling that whatever was happening right now may be the most important thing that would happen in all her life. She was wrong, it was far from being that important.
You see, some people consider the beginning of the story as the most important and pivotal point. That is incorrect. The beginning is only a decision, the choice to shove that mass of fabric into your backpack, that choice to ride the ambulance to the hospital, the choice to hold his hand as his breathing became slower and the life slowly left his body. That was only the beginning of her story. But the beginning was far from the most important thing that would happen in all her life. Leastways, her beginning was far from important at all. Perhaps the real beginnings are incredibly important. But that is all a story for another time. For now, we have one little girl with a wad of fabric in her bag, and a scrap of paper in her hand with a note scribbled onto it in the last moments of the man’s life.
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