Ambulance

  One day in college, I was walking home from the grocery store and I imagined what it would feel like to happen upon a dying person.

Ambulance

The other day I was walking home
A bag of groceries in each hand
I heard a muffled gag
and I turned around
There was a man there
lying face down in the grass
No one else was anywhere
so I went to help
He was an old man
and I don't know what made him fall
I put my bags of food down
and propped him up against a fence
That's when he told me he was dying
and nothing else could help him now
I used a payphone
An ambulance would soon arrive
I went back to the old man
and he asked for me to stay
He said I'd be the final human
 that he ever gets to see
As the truth of his words hit me
I felt a tear well up inside
He said that he was getting hungry
A bag of chips would do just fine
So we sat there eating corn chips
and that's when he closed his eyes
Then I started crying
The ambulance had come too late
I guess he knew that all along and
he just wanted a friend
And as I realized that
I never even knew his name
I knew that I'd do this again, but
with people I know and love
And though I didn't know him
I look back and I think
that when his eyes closed mine were opened
to just how sad death can be