Killed

One of the guys had something that resembled a weapon on his hand. From the place I was standing, 30 or 40 feet away, I could barely see what it really was but it seemed to be a pointed or sharply edged object.
I just was passing by, you know, and then I just heard that pretty common sound of a fight one can not miss it. It did not have an exact definition, it was more like grunting and sniffing and yelling, as if they were just a couple of mad dogs trying to demarcate their territory.
―You mother fucker, I’ll kill you―, one of the guys was yelling, or it was something like that, I am not sure about it now, but it does not matter at all.

Then, the guy with the weapon on his hand just leaped towards the other guy, moving his hand all around his face, in circles, as if trying to carve something in his opponent’s forehead. All that happened just in one second or less and I could hear how the people around me just stopped breathing.

―Oh my God! ―, one said.
―Somebody should call the police!― said someone else.
―These guys are going to kill each other―, and so on.

The next scene I remember was this guy trying to stand up from the ground, his face all smeared with blood and one of his eyes protruding like a red dead worm or something as horrible as that. He managed to make it for a few feet, holding with his weak hands what was there to be held, and all of a sudden just fell to his knees and then landed on the sidewalk with his arms spread as a cross.

It was only after that I could gather enough courage to get a little bit closer to that guy. A quick little pond of blood was forming besides him, and from where I was staring at him it was possible to see the place the blood was emanating from. The guy had gotten a deep cut below the left ear, just behind his jawbone, and by the moment I realized it, the blood was just impossible to stop. The guy was going to die, everyone knew it and accepted it, or it was what I believed. However, as if following some kind of necessary protocol, somebody urge the group to call the paramedics and someone else try to find some personal information in the guy’s wallet.

So I made the call to 911 and said what I had to said.

―A guy was stabbed on his neck ―I said calmly―, behind his jawbone, below his left hear..., yes..., there is a lot of blood..., yes..., he is in the sidewalk, aja, mmm, yes, we will not give him anything to drink or eat, yes..., it seems that the guy is dying anyway, yes, yes... we are on Mission Street and 22th..., let see..., this guy is around 26 years old, I think so..., Hispanic probably..., short and bulky.

I said all this, you know, and then we did not have to wait too long after the ambulance arrived and took the guy away. They turned him carefully over, put him in fetal position, and then laid him down over his back on a cot.

I just kept staring at the guy, just staring at him, as if under the effects of some spelling. Then he murmured something, once, twice, a third time. It became really clear to me that he tried to say something. People try to do such things in the last moment..., I have seen that in movies or documentaries in Discovery channel. I don't really know, but, it is as if people just realize that they will not have a second chance to say where the extra set of keys are, or what the pasword for the bank account is, or things like that. There is always a bunch of final words that have to be said, and one has to lend an ear to those words, just for the dying sake, it is as simple as that I think. That is why I got closer to the guy; even though the paramedics told me not to do so, I just got closer and closer until I could clearly hear what the guy was trying to say.

And I could not help it, I have to admit it, but I was expecting something like a statement, you know, at least a kind of farewell for his beloved ones, something that could resemble an instant of insight or revelation, awe..., those things that you are suppose to experience in the fringes of life and death..., I mean, I have not met anyone that have gone through all that, the tunel and the bright light and all that peaceful moments with angels and choirs, and a glimpse of God presence and so on... No, I have not met anyone, of course; but it is what people say and it must be for some reason, right?...,

Anyway, I got closer to the guy and all I could hear, or better said, all I could make of what he was saying was the ggggghhhhh ggggghhhhhh: the sizzling sound that the blood on his throat was making as if it were a pot of boiling water. Then they just took him, and the ambulance speeded along the mission and then just dissapeared some blocks away. And that was the end of it.