The lights and sirens flashed and beeped into the cool stillness of the air.

“What had happened?” The question submerged, and was drowned under the sea by the music of the sirens, matched by flashing red and blue lights, both dancing in rhythm under the pale moonlight. They danced a tragic dance.

“Oh, some stupid drunk hit a pedestrian as he was crossing the street. He killed him, messed him up real bad, too,” a witness replied.

“Where’s the driver now?” the curious passerby asked. The witness pointed his finger like a compass on the sidewalk, next to a broken telephone pole. Half of it was in front of the 1976 Honda Accord. The other half was sunken deep into the roof – which was the floor now – of the car like a soft mattress.

“He’s still alive, the bastard; some damn miracle,” the witness said, snapping his finger in the air. “The police are talking to him now. I’m just trying to figure out how the heck he survived that pole; there’s no way he should have lived.”

The curious passerby walked around and overheard some of the other pedestrians talking. They sounded like old women gossiping at a Church service.

“Yeah, I knew the drunk. His name is John; he lives down the street. I knew he and his wife were having problems, but I didn’t know it was that bad. I see now it’s because of his damned spirits, that drunk. Oh, but that poor dead man’s family! What they must be going through!”

The ambulance came; their own calamity competed with the police car’s sirens. But they still were singing a sad elegy. The paramedics rushed to the middle of the street with a stretcher, and carefully placed the corpse of the pedestrian onto it. He had a cell phone in his hand; he must have been talking to someone, a wife or a girlfriend.

The town itself isn’t very large, nor is it remotely active. The hospital is two and a half miles away, which explains the twenty minute delay it took for the ambulance to get to the scene. It took the police almost fifteen minutes to get there as well.

It is a quiet, rural town, placed in the middle of God-knows-where, near the mountains. It is fifteen miles from any urban or even sub-urban city. But the people like their peaceful setting; the outside world is too noisy, they claim, with all their little media: cell phones, televisions, loud music. Their tranquil station would only be interrupted periodically by the normal melodies of the red and blue sirens. The residents would soon incorporate those harmonies in their own placid world.

There aren’t too many people living in the small town; only about two thousand or so. And everybody knows each other, since there is only one church in the town. The number might be down to less than two thousand soon, though. There aren’t too many people who settle down there, and the town is known for its unusually high number of suicides and accidental deaths due to sobbing drunks. This particular case is different: he hit the pedestrian in an attempt to kill himself, he later told the police.

“I think they just moved in, too,” one woman said to her friend. “I think he lived near S—-.”

“‘S’ – what did you say?” her friend inquired.

“Oh, you know that big loud city with all the lights and tall buildings; it’s about twenty two miles north of here.”

“Oh, I know. I heard he was some big communications specialist or something.”

“Yeah, poor thing. His wife must be absolutely torn to pieces. Anyways, Cecile, I have to get home and do some quiet reading. That noisy young couple across the street are out of town, so I have to milk my time for all it’s worth.”

“Okay, you get home safe, now.”

After about twenty minutes the passer-bys started all to clear out, and the police and ambulance left soon after, until there were no chilling melodies playing under the pale moonlight. The curious passer-by looked at the scene, the broken telephone pole, the broken glass, shook his head, and then started to walk back home. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He dialed a sequence of numbers.

“Hey, honey. Yeah, no. Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to tell you that I love you. I’ll be home soon.”