Stunned.

Can’t focus. Keep missing turns when I’m driving. Spent last night twisting and turning and looking at the ceiling. Struggling to get enough focus just to do small things.

Just, totally shellshocked is how I’d put it.

Really in a tailspin. And this is going on a month.

I had to leave work early today. Afraid I’d slip off the platform. That nearly happened yesterday. Director was cool about it. I don’t take the piss with him. He asked me if I was alright – he knows what happened but didn’t push it. I said, “Pumping migraine.”
“Grand”, he says, “Max can fill in for you, just keep me in the loop.”

But no. I never expected the effect it would have on me. I mean, I thought I had the strength to stay grounded. To be strong for myself and the others.

Most things I take in my stride. Like – people have even said to me, “You handled such and such well, how were you were so calm?”

Like the time I came across Jim’s accident. First on the scene. It was real rough to be honest, white ribs showing. I just did what I could – emergency call, got hazard lights flashing to slow down traffic. And all the time Jim was just whimpering. What could I do? I’m not a medic.
I still shiver if I think about it.
But honestly, it’s not waking me up in the middle of the night.
It never controlled me.
Never did.

I’d been out with Jim and we all knew he shouldn’t have driven. But he always drove, didn’t matter how much he drank. Couldn’t be stopped. Never listened. Ye can’t control what a grown man does. We make choices and shit happens.
So I suppose the milk had been spilled. And at that point we had to just clean up. As best we could.
I was still there when Mags arrived, his wife. She rang me afterwards to thank me. She said, “You were so calm and supportive. I don’t think I could have done that for someone else.”
That’s what she said.
I don’t remember what I said to her at the time. But I’m glad she took some comfort. Mags was barely able to stand, firemen cutting open the car and everything.
But I slept afterwards.
No issue with that.
No guilt.
I know a few guys who work in emergency services – it registers for sure, and obviously you’re thankful it’s not you or someone close to you. After that? Ye do your best. Fergal says he thinks about the crossword, the cryptic clues he can’t solve. Runs them through his mind. Works for him. Ye can’t crumple in that kind of job. You wouldn’t last a week.

With the suicide, well, I knew Ken of course. I knew him pretty well. Worked alongside him for years. Went to his wedding and all that. But none of us seen it coming. He hid it from us totally. No one expected it.

But it wasn’t within my power to change what Ken did. So I was able to move on.

Or the time Noel got sick. Noel wasn’t well for ages but he wouldn’t get it checked. Got to the point where he couldn’t bend without pain. Ignored us pestering him about it. And never told Paula. Well, he did but it was too late by then.
So once ye get the news you help anyway you can. Stay positive, keep upbeat for the kids. Like Noel did when I was sick. Ye return the karma. It’s sad but it feels good to have gotten the chance to help out. I used to bring his kids to big games. Paula really appreciated that.

There’s an initial shock, but then, quickly enough, you absorb it. Move on. The accident, suicide, all those, they’re just a kind of footnote. Then you go back to your own life.

But right now I feel completely tangled. In a kind of living dread.

For a start I don’t know what’s coming. What way this is all going to pan out. I keep playing possible scenarios in my mind about next week, next month whenever. Things could work out ok but that somehow makes the opposite seem worse. As if I could be building myself up for a bigger let down.

And then I can’t stop wondering about what I should I do. Should I try to help or is that making things worse? Have I made things worse already? I can’t decide either way. The indecision is eating me.

But it’s the regrets and replaying old things that happened. That’s the worst.

Something that happened 20 years ago flashes in your mind. Maybe hits you just as you stretch an extension lead or change the filters on a camera lens. It hits you in the guts just then. You look through the lens but you’re seeing something that isn’t there.

It’s a movie scene. Clear technicolour. So real, the texture of the skin even. A close up of the twitch in a cheek, the little sad drop of an eyebrow, the reaction you missed but the audience saw. The moment you steamrolled over.

Hadn’t thought of this moment since back when it happened. Not even once. Didn’t realise it was still in there.

But right now it’s screaming in your face, piercing soundtrack stabbing your brain and the clear message is, “Did you not see it? For Christ’s sake how did you not see it?”

Once you’ve remembered this piece of archive footage you can’t un-remember it. It keeps doing a loop with the other memories you want to forget.

You can’t logic it away. You can’t reason it away as experience – you made choices and with hindsight they were poor.
Really poor.

So your mind plays out a different version of the scene. Just to torment you.

It’s a version where you caught it – where you did something different. Said something different. Where you put a new frame in motion. A moment of connection, a moment of warmth.

You know it’s not helping but now that this memory has begun you just can’t switch it off. The possibility of a different ending is addictive, the moment that could have changed the course of the rest of the movie. The movie you’re living in now.

And those endings hurt so bad. The maybe ever afters.

The imaginary could have beens.