Not enough time

[thisnewday]

There wasn't time for them to clean him up before his mother got there. The blood, his blood, still covered his face and congealed in his hair. But his clothing had been taken, for evidence, they said. There'd been time enough for that, because it was necessary, in cases like these. So the fatal wounds in his neck and chest were clearly visible. And that was what his mother saw, the first time she saw him after being told that it was too late, that her son was dead.

And it had happened so fast, the running down the allyway, the sudden flash of the unexpected knife. And then the recoil and the falling back, into the street, the first steps strong with adrenaline and panic and because he was young and had been an athlete. But it was only seconds, a step or two beyond the curbing, before he fell. And the friends, the ones who'd been with him, could do nothing to help, because it happened so fast and there wasn't time.

And lying there, what were his thoughts, once he understood? Was there time for him to think of where he might have been, of what he might have done, the next day or the next, if it hadn't been for this? Because he was just eighteen and there should have been time...

R.I.P.
Wesley Valentine