There is a small yellow backpack - half unzipped, mouth yawning to the pavement, contents strewn around it (a banana, an exercise book, a pair of scissors) - abandoned on a suburban footpath.
Ten feet away, the rubber stamp of tyres, resisting clamped brakes, mount the curb and cut across the path. The tracks come to an end at a crippled stop sign.
The street, a tree-lined suburban road dappled in late-afternoon sunlight, is calm. But anyone walking past can feel the ghosts: the prickle on the back of their necks that tells them something happened here. The story of a vehicle careening to a halt. Of a child’s backpack left in a hurry.
That intuition all comes before they take a closer look, and see there is dark, dry red on the scissor’s blade. The ghosts are screaming now; the scene’s memory turns violent. And as the passers-by raise their phones to answer the question what is your emergency? They see more red. Between the tyre-tracks and the blood. There are two words, hastily scrawled on the sidewalk. Written in blood.
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