A Soul in My Hands

What would you do?

A story from a year ago.

Somewhere along the new road between Blantyre and Lilongwe, Malawi, maybe 50 kilometers from the Shire River bridge, I thought I saw something laying across the road. It was midnight and the lights on the Toyota box truck weren’t great, so I stopped to see what it was.

I found a man. His eyes were half open and when I knelt down to get a closer look, he didn’t move but he was still breathing. He stank of banana beer and excrement. I didn’t want to move him, although he had no obvious injuries, so I decided to make him more comfortable. I went back to the truck and dug through my stuff to find something softer than the pavement for a pillow. I didn’t know what else to do.

I gently slid my hand under his head to raise it, only to feel something warm and wet against my fingers. Then I felt pieces of shattered bone and something soft and pliable. It was his brain. I touched his brain. The back of his head was crushed. It stunned me.

Back at the truck again, I scrubbed my hands with water. AIDS was on my mind in those early days of the pandemic, and I knew how the disease was transmitted. Whatever duty I felt to assist the man was tempered by the duty I felt for my family.

I didn’t know what to do.

Was he hit by a car or truck while staggering drunk along the road? If so, the driver of the vehicle probably didn’t realize what he hit, or knew and decided not to stop. I could also leave and no one would know.

I walked back and stood beside the man to think about my options when a southbound truck drove up. The driver jumped from the cab and asked me what had happened. I told him how I found the man and how he was injured. The driver said there was a mission hospital not far away. His men helped me load the man into the back of my truck.

At the hospital reception, I found some orderlies who followed me to the truck with a gurney. After moving the man inside, the young Dutch doctor on duty asked me to help him remove the man’s ragged clothes. When we removed his pants, the man covered his genitals with his hands. Somewhere in that crushed brain, there was still a flicker of awareness.

The doctor quickly checked the injuries, gave the man a sedative, and said there was nothing more he could do. He asked me if I could stay with the man. The doctor needed to go back to assist a midwife with a difficult delivery. I said I would stay.

I don’t know how long I sat next to the man, but eventually I noticed that urine was dripping onto the tile floor under the gurney. He stopped breathing.

Back in the truck and heading north again, I replayed the night’s events over and over, my thoughts and my responses, the man’s death, and if there was any meaning to any of it. At some point, I smelled tobacco smoke. The farther north I drove, the stronger the smell. Then ahead of me, I saw a semi-truck with a long trailer loaded with dried tobacco leaves on fire. The truck was a giant cigarette burning out of control. The driver stood across the road watching helplessly as the truck and load were incinerated. I slowed to help, but he waved me on. There was nothing I could do to help. All evening, there was nothing I could do to help.

I don’t remember why I traveled so late that night and I don’t remember when I got to Lilongwe. I remember feeling small, powerless, and tired beyond words. I didn’t know what to do. I worried about the blood on my hands. I stayed with the first man until he died. Did it matter? I couldn’t help the second man. Did it matter?

What would you do?