Blood. Casting a carmine glow. Spread over the tar road. All that was visible from the distance was the glistening fluid which formed a carpet. It shimmered in the midday sunlight as if it were an iridescent diamond under the moonlight sky. But, with the lapse of every second, the pool of red got blanketed under debris and dust due to the mild, yet noticeably hot afternoon breeze.
Once you break your gaze from the rug of blood and muck, you'd soon see two whimpering men next to a tattered Yamaha bike on the road. The younger one was sitting up, crying in what seemed to be excruciating pain and shock, helpless and afraid. The other man lay there on the road in an awkward supine position, with his appendages flailed about in different directions.
Upon closer examination, it is clear that this man is as damaged as a hand-me-down rag doll. Scratches and gashes line every inch of visible skin, each profusely spilling blood at a rather vigorous pace. The atmosphere is imbued with the acrid and dispelling smell of blood, the salineness of sweat and grim. As you trace the length of the injured man's body, you'd soon stop and gape in horror at his left leg. His pants shredded, a chunk of flesh and sinew meet the eye. About three inches of yellowish bone protrude from the lump of muscle and flesh, defying its natural position inside the knee socket. The man seemed to be aware of just the pain and not the gory snag as he was too weak to even prop his head up to take a look at the rest of his body.
As if this scene wasn't hopeless enough, the place of this accident added to the desperate feel of the situation. Either sides of the road had nothing more than open fields with patches of wild, brown grass and weeds. It was resemblant of a parched moor that was too ominous to sustain any form of life. The road was empty except for ourselves and logic dictated that it would remain so for a good while until some vehicle passes by. Another 5 kilometers down the road would take you to the suburbs of Tambaram.
Having gathered enough, my mother got out of the car telling me to stay inside- which she had parked along the periphery of the narrow lane- with horrified haste and approached the abject victims. The view from inside the car was enough to surmise the essentials of the situation- two wounded men in the middle of nowhere who had succumbed to an accident we hadn't witnessed and no cell phone to call for help. As if on cue, two bikes appeared on the road and halted to a stop in front of the car, about 5 yards away from the scene just as my mother propped up the wounded man's head and told him that everything was going to be alright.
Help was soon summoned using one of the biker's mobile phone, information was gathered from the less wounded man who was able to string no more than three or four words together due to pain and his shock induced stutter. In the next ten minutes, a dozen people had gathered to offer help; all purposefully shouting at each other to call for help- a few more vehicles started snowballing in, most of which bore curious passengers who did nothing more than gasp and gape for a couple of minutes before driving away.
However, relief soon settled as the wailing siren of an ambulance greeted the ears of the many who had gathered. The meagre mob soon dissipated with the exception of my mother who was busy tiring to scrub off the blood from not just her hands but also her clothes only to give up and walk toward me, get the engine started and drive off home.
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