Elyse ambled down the silent street, lost in reverie of the earlier night/morning. Her heels clicked on the cobblestones. Her red dress brushed against her legs. Her hair stuck to the back of her sweaty neck. It had been the perfect party. The right music played. The right people came. The right food was served. Everything was right. Even the weather was just right. A soft breeze brushed Elyse’s hair off her neck.

She stumbled. She heard a scream. Maybe it was the Schnapps talking…but no. There it was again. The horrible desperate scream of the dying. The sound echoed in Elyse’s pounding head. Without even thinking she ran into the dark alley, kicking off her fashionable but impractical heels as she went. Her bare feet pounded on the road. Her red dress tore as she raced around trash cans. Her hair whipped through the air.

"Faster," she thought. "I have to go faster. I have to get there." The screams grew louder. More desperate. Then, with a gurgled shriek, they silenced. Elyse skidded to a halt, rounding the final corner. A woman sat against a brick wall. Pajamas were torn away to reveal still bleeding cuts and half-healed bruises. Fingerprints encircled her neck. Her eyes were unfocused, unseeing, and still wet from her final tears.

Elyse fell to her knees before the prone figure…



Elly throws her pen at the wall. A notebook soon follows. “How the heck is this supposed to help me?” she screams at a bearded man in a suit. He sits calmly behind a desk, as though he sees this every day. Then again, as a shrink in New York City, he probably does. Elly continues to shout. “What is even the point of this exercise? Reliving my own memory isn’t bad enough? Some fictitious character has to deal with it to? I have to twist it and warp it and write about it? Just remembering it every day of my life is bad enough. I don’t need you tell me to think about it and get over it. I will never get over it. I could live to be 102 and still remember February 12, 2011 as the WORST FREAKING DAY OF MY LIFE!”

Elly throws a few more things then storms out of the room, slamming the heavy wooden door behind her. The bearded man simply straightens his glasses and calmly begins to write.

Elly isn’t quite so calm. She enters a silent waiting room. No one even notices her. The secretary also probably sees this kind of behavior every day and the other patients are too jaded by their own problems to even care. Elly dashes past her parents and down a dozen flights of stairs. She pushes open a door and emerges onto a busy street. She stumbles past the man begging for change, the tourist holding a map upside-down, and the business woman striding purposefully by. Somehow, Elly makes it to an alley several blocks away. No one comes here. Not anymore.

Elly slides down the brick wall. Pulling her knees close, she begins to cry. First one tear, then another, then full-out waterworks, complete with sobbing.

What was I supposed to do that night? What could I have done? I got there as fast as I could. But I was too late. I should have called the cops. Why didn’t I call the cops? But that wouldn’t have helped either. Between the 911 call and getting a hold of a cop car and them actually getting over there, it would have been too late. There’s nothing I could have possibly done. If I had gotten there earlier I wouldn’t have saved anyone’s life. I’d have probably ended up dead as well. But if I did nothing wrong, why do I feel so guilty?