The Blood, Oh The Blood

The man gazed down, his hands were covered with blood, the deepest scarlet blood he had ever seen. It spilled across his hands, coat, and pants, but he couldn’t remember where it had come from. He knew something had happened, something so dreadful that he didn’t ever want to know what it was. Then he heard the gasps from the nosy old ladies on the corner and the runners out on their mid-morning jogs stopping in their tracks eyeing the blood, oh the blood, the stained red sticky blood. Suddenly the splitting pitch of a police siren swarmed the air like a speaker on high in a tiny, tiny room. Not knowing what to do he ran so fast his fist clenched his bulky chest as he gasped for breathe to loosen the horrific tightness binding his chest, but cease did he not, not stopping for anything or anyone.

Upon running several blocks without stop, the man noticed the eyes that followed him at every corner. The blood, oh the blood, he had to get rid of the blood, it seemed like Satan's fingerprint on his very body slowly drying to a deep reddish brown. He soon slipped into a public loo, tore off his stained coat and thrust his hands into the sink under a stream of hot water. Lathering his hands in soap he scrubbed and scrubbed but the blood, oh the blood, simply wouldn’t budge. For what seemed like hours he scrubbed, nearly pulling flesh from bone but even then the blood remained a deep scarlet stain on his hands.

The man recurrently wandered into thought, and subsequently failed to recall any memory of the occurrence. As hard as he tried he could not summon the memory from deep inside his mind. The unknowing of the unspeakable occurrence worried him exceptionally so. He was sure it was a mental blockade preventing recollection of the occurrence, for all he knew, for all he thought he knew was that it was terrible, so terrible that he would even go as far as saying it was as bad as the deep scarlet blood that stained his very skin. The memory of standing alone with his daughter wrapped tight in his arms with a deep look of discontent flooding her eyes remained imprisoned in his mind but beyond that was a black abyss of empty space. Surely it couldn't be...No it was impossible, his daughter was fine. In fact, she was probably waiting for him this very minute. Disgusted at himself for even entertaining the thought of such a terrible thing, the man turned his wrath back to the scarlet blood staining his hands and continued.

After cleaning himself to the best of his ability, although some of the deep scarlet blood remained stained on his body, he proceeded at a brisk walk across the cobbled street and back the way he came walking deeper and deeper into the city and towards the crisp blue ocean. Not knowing whether it would be in his best interest to simply return home or to return to the place of the occurrence, the man decided that neither the latter nor the first would suffice at the present and instead decided to remain walking as he attempted to penetrate deeper into his mind.

Upon achieving little success due to no lack of effort, the man decided that despite his conscious strenuous objection, he must return to the site of the occurrence, he must return to the blood…