Bodies on the Ground

Close to a year ago, I was walking along a street when I heard a strange squealing. At the intersection, kitty-corner, was a building next to a small parking lot at the corner. The building housed a motorcycle shop, and farther down the street was a clinic that apparently specialized in senior care. At this time, one of the employees from the bike shop, and two women from the clinic were standing by the corner of the building, trying to figure out what to do next. A little behind them, about 3 feet from the sidewalk, was an old woman lying face down in the gutter that ran between the building and the parking lot. She might have been in her late fifties, or as old as her seventies. She had straggly short gray hair and spindly arms and legs. She wore a short dirty pink pajama top over an adult diaper, and no shoes or socks. Every time someone tried to get her to stand up and go back to the clinic, she'd start squealing and try to hide her head in the gutter again. I didn't stick around to find out what would happen at the end. When I returned to the area an hour later, everyone was gone and it looked to be back to normal.

Two years ago, I wrote Small Adventure 57, about an old man that apparently passed out on the sidewark near Amu Plaza. You can click on the link to read that story.

On Dec. 18, I was returning from Minami Kagoshima. As I got off the street car at the Takamibaba stop, I noticed a police car at the opposite side of the street. Near the front of the patrol car were two paramedics kneeling in the street and strapping an older guy into a stretcher. The older guy wasn't moving. A few feet farther along the street was a car parked with one wheel up on the curb. One of the police was directing traffic. Along the sidewalk, about 6 people stood around and just watched the action. I couldn't see any broken glass or blood, but a couple cops were interviewing someone and taking notes. I couldn't tell if the guy on the stretcher had been hit by the car, or if he'd been driving the car and blacked out or something.

Kagoshima. It's a strange place to be.