(Poor) Little Boy

I was 19 at the time.

Fanny and I were walking around the lake. We liked to meet and talk for hours. We would first cook and eat in her home, and then follow the edge along the water. I think the whole trail takes about 1 hour, but we’d just stop here and there, on a bench, on the grass, and chat. Any subject. But it was always deep.

Then on the other side, we saw a kid. A girl. She was maybe 5 or 6. She was drowning. On the bank were 2 policemen. They didn’t move. Another kid, about maybe 10, a boy, went into the water. Later we would learn that it was her brother. He saved his sister. But not himself.

We ran and screamed. “WHY DONT YOU FUCKING HELP?!! CANT YOU SEE HES DROWNING???!!!”. But they didn’t move. Fanny and I jumped into the water, and brought back the kid on the shore. But he was dead already.

We both stared back at the policemen.

Then they talked.

They said that they were “not trained” to deal with the incident, and decided to wait until the trained officers arrived. Else there might be “legal issues”.

The boy died. The parents cried. The policemen got nothing, not even a warning. They had respected the code of conduct of their job. They didn’t break any rules. They did the “right” thing. They should be proud of themselves.

Fanny and I walked a bit more. We sat down, removed our shoes and dropped our feet into the cold water. We started discussing about morals and ethics. We ate an apple.

So, this is the world we live in.