It was a cloudy and dark evening when John’s mother died. The slow decay of her mind over the past years, the fact that her skin slowly grew as grey as the walls in her room here in the local hospital, all these things made John think about joining her at this very moment. There wasn’t anything more that John could do for her.

Two hours of mourning passed him by in a second. John felt exhausted and shallow so he finally decided to leave the sight of sorrow and grief, to think of something different -anything different- and to let go.

On his way to his car his thoughts still lingered with his mother. Three years he had cared for her. With divine-like endurance he had read book after book after book, not only on the Alzheimer’s disease but also on every kind of medical subject he could get his hands on. He could administer first aid just as well as he could tell between type-one and type-two diabetes. He even could stitch lacerated wounds but all his knowledge about medicine, drugs, methods and stages couldn’t save his mother. Deep within his heart he had known that all the time but suppressed it with hope and heavy books, but today he had to face it.

Dark thoughts arose again this day in his mind about suicide and life, about giving up and letting go. His eyes saw the woman on the bike crossing the street but his mind still lingered in his past. When John’s mind returned it was too late, John’s Buick had already hit the biker.

Numb and dizzy he jumped out of the car. He felt no pain at first but just as he was kneeling down to take a look at the woman a sting in his neck hit his nervous system like lightning. He didn’t know whether it was from the accident or from the staring eyes of the woman.

Blood was running down her face, passers-by looked shocked and curious, shouting for help, calling for an ambulance. But John didn’t notice them at all. As he was looking at the woman’s bruises and wounds he just saw the endless pages on traumata, haematoma and contused wounds that he had studied in his mind. His hands began to move, cleaning and dressing the wounds with parts of his shirt, supporting her mentally and stabilizing her, still taking care of every little scratch.

“Don’t worry, ma’am! It doesn’t look so bad, it’s only a flesh wound.”

He was able to move her away from the street without hurting her even more and managed to ease her fear by talking to her calmly although he knew that she was on the brink of death.

John was so busy that he didn’t notice the doctor who jumped out of the ambulance that just had arrived at the crash site. When he kneeled down next to him, John was a little surprised.

“Let me handle it from now, will you?”

The doctor pushed John away to examine the bruises and wounds of the lady. Astonished he looked at John.

“My god! These wounds are terrible but you… you saved her life, doctor!”

“I am no doctor.”

John replied absently, wiping off the woman’s blood from his torn shirt while the assistants heaved the woman onto the bier and into the ambulance car.

“But how…?”

The doctor joined his team in the ambulance still looking at John with a mix of astonishment and reverence.

When ambulance and police were long gone and the last onlooker had left, John was still sitting in his damaged car, rubbing his neck, a cigarette between his fingers with dried blood on it and thinking about his day. The moon appeared behind the clouds in the distance and it felt somehow strangely comforting to him. It was a long and terrible day but he felt better than he was doing the past few years. Relieved he took a last breath and threw the cigarette into the darkness. He started up his dented Buick, moved it out of the lamppost and left. With a gentle breeze the smoke of his cigarette vanished in the night along with John’s past.