secrets

It's late. It's dark. It's raining. Visibility isn't great. And you're tired. You're trying to stay awake, so you're not giving your full attention to driving. And then suddenly, you're jolted awake because you just hit someone with your car. You didn't see the person - you didn't even see the sidewalk the person stepped off. And all you can do is drive. You don't stop. The further you drive, the more you can convince yourself that nothing happened, that you hit a rock, that you hit a branch, that you fell asleep for a second and it was all just a dream.

But then you hear the reports on the radio and you see the news story on the television. The woman is in a coma, and the police have no idea who hit her because the driver left the scene, and there were no witnesses.

You know you should have stopped. It was an accident. But so much time has passed now. And you left. It'll be even worse if you speak up now. No one else knows. No one saw anything. You're the only one who knows what happened. You pray that she'll wake up, that she'll get better, and she may not even be able to tell that it's you, and the nightmare will be over.

But your conscience eats away at you. You can't stop thinking about her. You can't stop thinking about what you did. You can't stop thinking about what you didn't do. This isn't you. This isn't the kind of thing you do. It was one horrible mistake, one terrible decision, one split-second moment in time that will haunt you for the rest of your life.

What do you do? How do you live with yourself?








Genesis, We Can't Dance, "Dreaming While You Sleep"