The bus lurched to a halt with a violent jerk. Something splattered onto my lap — between my knees — wrapped in crumpled cloth. Brain matter?
Not just on my lap — I could see blood streaming down from the hair at my left temple, trickling over my shoulder and chest. My kurta was soaked through, making wet squelching sounds.
Screaming all around. I shut my eyes in overwhelming terror.
Most of the passengers had gotten off the bus and were standing around the innocent lamppost below. Someone shook me and cried out — "What happened to you, brother?"
A few agitated young men were shouting in heated, crude language, "Bring down the driver! If he hadn't hugged the curb so tight, this wouldn't have happened."
After some time, consciousness returned. I scrambled up and stumbled off the bus. In the confusion, I hadn't noticed when someone had lifted that mangled thing from my lap and carried it down to the crowd below.
A group of elderly men, indifferent to their own aging, were vocal in their protest against this office-hour disruption. One group of detached spectators. Another of busy sympathizers.
I moved forward toward the crowd — rather like someone possessed. My appearance must have been quite ghastly then. Everyone stepped aside when they saw me.
The lamppost was bloodied. Below it, the crushed body lay folded into a small heap of flesh. The head was indistinct. Around what remained above the shoulders, a shopping bag was twisted like an angry snake.
The driver had fled; the conductor couldn't. A group was busy dragging him aside and beating him savagely; some were even protesting weakly on his behalf. The women passengers from the bus huddled fearfully at a distance.
I shuddered as I looked around. Death's shadow trembled on every terrified face. Seeing death so close, I too shuddered. My undershirt, soaked and clinging to my skin, made my whole body shake uncontrollably!
"Has someone called the police station and ambulance?" — someone shouted.
I wiped my face with my handkerchief and looked again at the lamppost. The bag lay unchanged beside the mangled body; inside it, an intact quarter-pound loaf of bread peeked out. One hand remained grotesquely stretched toward it.
A storm of voices all around.
Yet no one knew the man.