Flash Fiction: So Much Promise

“Such a shame. That boy had so much promise”.  Shaking her head, she remembered some of the times she had seen him in the swimming pool.  He was like a dolphin.

Simon swam so fast and barely caused a ripple in the water.  He was a graceful swimmer.  The first time Jan saw him swim, she was amazed and laughed to her friend Jill and said, “is that a boy or a fish?!”  Jan would not have been surprised if when Simon came out of the water, he had gills instead of arms!

By the age of 10, Sion had already won so many medals at school events, galas etc. and he was a sure thing for the Olympics and Commonwealth games when he reached the correct age.  His whole town were proud of him even his fellow school mates – they held him in awe but also felt a bit jealous of him too. But not on wished harm on him.

Why Jan was so devastated when she saw what happened and heard the fateful news.   Jan was walking down the high street, listening to her music thinking about the week ahead, the awful week ahead, when she heard a blood curling scream and tires screeching and burning the road.  Jan ran to see what happened and saw a motorbike lying on the road with the motorcyclist lying on the road a few yards away, his dead black eyes staring back at Jan. He wasn’t wearing a helmet. An error.

Jan nearly vomited at the site before her eyes, so turned towards the Motorcycle to help her focus again. This was when she  wished she had never done so, because they was a huge lump under the bike, and after a closer look, Jan noticed that the lump was not a lump, but it was a boy.  And lying a behind him was an arm – a detached arm.  Again Jan couldn’t not bear this. She turned away again.

Jan was wondering to herself who the boy was, and whether he was alive or dead?  It was then she noticed a woman on the ground crying, totally heartbroken and unable to breathe. No one was with her, so Jan walked towards her, and realised this devastated mother was Mrs Nicholson, the mother of Sam, the dolphin swimmer. 

So many thoughts were swimming around Jan’s head – “why this? why him? Why wee Simon? Why Mrs Nicholson, why her son?”  Jan thought Simon was dead.  She didn’t know what to do, but she did the one thing she would want someone to do if she was in Mrs Nicholson’s shoes, she got down beside Mrs Nicholson and put her arm around her. 

The tears were streaming down her face and the face of Mrs Nicholson, and the screams coming from the women beside her were awful, but eventually they stopped and all Jan could feel beside her was the shuddering of this women sitting beside her, curled in against her, learning on her for comfort and support.  Jan was frozen.

Jan looked up and saw that everyone was standing on the side of the road, watching everything unfold. No one was speaking, just standing and staring.  Jan could not believe this and was about to lash out at them calling them heartless when the sirens of the ambulance came blaring towards her.  Help, at last, she thought. Thank Goodness.

There wasn’t just one ambulance, there were two. One for each victim.  The ambulances stopped and the paramedics rushed out, four of them, two ran towards Simon while two ran towards the cyclist.  

After being with the cyclist for two minutes, Jan was surprised to see him being rolled onto the stretcher - they don’t usually do that so quickly unless the person is dead.  Jan didn’t know what to think, she thought awful for the cyclists parents, but her mind was brought back to Simon very quickly when Mrs Nicholson let a big scream out of her again. Jan turned back towards her quickly expecting for her first dears to be confirmed, that Simon, the dolphin boy was also dead.  But she was to be proved wrong, because Mrs Nicholson had a huge smile on her face, Simon wasn’t dead.

“He’s going to be alright, I have my wee boy back, my wee swimmer. I can’t wait to see him back in the water. I thought I had lost him forever”. Jan smiled back at her, but was also thinking, what about Simon’s arm, does she not see it is not attached to his body anymore. What’s going to happen when she realises that Simon, will not be able to be her wee dolphin boy anymore, as his arm was no longer part of him.  Poor Simon, only 10, and he has such promise as a swimmer and now he would never be able to swim again like he used too.