THE TRUTH WE SEE

I know that this blog is pretty much dead, so no one may actually read this post. But I need to write it anyway. Therapy, I suppose.

I saw a human being on fire today. Literally.

I was sitting at a restaurant near the seminary waiting on my food when the lady behind the counter began to scream. “Oh my God! He’s on fire!” I turned and looked out the window to see a person (it turned out to be a woman) engulfed in flames across the street. Her entire upper body was ablaze. She fell to the ground and lay on her back waving her arms in the air. And several people standing nearby just stood and watched. They didn’t move toward her or attempt to help her. They just stood there and watched.

I ran outside and shouted for them to roll her over in the grass to help put out the flames (which no one did) and then ran back inside to try to get some water and to tell someone to call 911. The woman in the restaurant who first spotted her had already got some water and headed across the street. I got two more containers of water and ran behind her. When I arrived on her side of the street, the flames were out but her skin, hair and clothes were still smoldering. We poured some more of the water on her and then someone else from the restaurant brought some towels that we soaked and laid on her until the ambulance arrived. They loaded her up and left with sirens blaring. A small group of us who had stayed with her until they arrived just stood there in stunned disbelief.

She was a homeless woman, apparently inebriated to the point of numbness. None of us standing there know how it started. She was, for all intents and purposes, invisible to the world until she caught fire. Apparently she was still practically invisible to some who stood nearby.

They just stood there and watched.