There's No Such Thing as Humanity Anymore...

i was riding my bike home this evening after work when a guy jumped out in front of me and i flew head first off my bike.

there's a spot on the bike path by my house that's a pretty popular area for gay men to hang out. it's the same spot where that guy yelled out "hey! that's phillip's girl!" i reported a while back. usually the guys are just sitting at the tables, chatting, or whatever. of course, i'm sure that they also do their cruising or whatever in that area too. but that's not the point.

i'm happily riding along the path when i hear guys yelling. as i get closer to that area, i see some of them fighting. they are moving closer to the path. there's one guy walking on the path and the other two (fighting) guys are making their way near the path. i slow down a bit to maneuver around the walking guy, and as i do, one of the other guys jumps in my way to get away from the guy he's fighting. well, i haven't slowed down enough for me to just stop, so as i slam on my breaks and also turn the wheel to avoid hitting the guy, i go right over the handlebars and slide across the pavement.

yes. i SLID across the PAVEMENT.

as i'm sitting there, face down, i hear the guys fighting. they have moved into the street now. i try and get up, but i'm pretty dazed. i finally manage to turn around, move the bike off me, and assess the damage. i'm scraped up real bad.

as i sit there, two white men, one probably in his late 20s and another in his 40s walk right by me. neither one of them asked me if i was ok or if i needed help. they just looked at me, shook their heads (ok, that might be in my mind), looked straight ahead and kept walking. that's when the tears came.

i wasn't crying because the majority of my flesh was scraped onto the concrete, i was crying because i couldn't believe that these two "men" had absolutely no desire to come to the aid of a stranger. by the time they had passed me, the guys who were fighting had moved about 100 yards away and were on the other side of the street. so it's not like they (the white guys) were going to be walking through a fight (black guys). i sat there, dazed and bleeding while two human beings ignored me.

by the time i got up the hill, the police had come to break up the fight. i had to stop and shake off the dizzy feeling. oh, and to twist the handlebars back into place since i don't think my bike is rideable right now. i bent the handlebars back, but i don't think i did a good job. i'll have to take it to the bike store monday to see if they can fix it for me. anyway, as i'm having a mini freak out about my very expensive bike, i watch the cops round up two of the guys who are screaming their heads off. i briefly thought about telling them that the whole reason i'm a bloody mess is due to the fact that two of those assholes jumped in front of me. but i didn't. what good would it do? they are probably homeless so if i filed a report on my busted up bike i wouldn't get any cash for it or anything.

as i'm walking home, bleeding like crazy, i start to bawl. i can't get over how two grown adult men completely ignored me. i know that society hates fat people. hell, society hates fat WOMEN the most. so is that the reason why they didn't stop to help? because i was a bleeding lump of lard, sitting there with my shirt up to my tits and my belly showing? or is it because they just couldn't be bothered? what kind of person doesn't stop to help a stranger that's been hurt? it's the strangest feeling, but i feel like i've been punched in the gut when i think about this. it's like a strange, lonely, hollow sort of feeling. i can't describe it but it makes me cry.

i've cleaned myself up. put peroxide on the wounds and covered them with bandages. i am typing with my left hand because my right hand/arm is scraped up bad. i swear, if my backpack hadn't flipped up off my back, twisted around, and landed in front of me, i would have scraped my face on the concrete as well. and that would have been bad. i couldn't find bandages big enough for the wounds on my leg, so i'm using maxi pads held on with ace bandages. hey, i knew they would come in handy some day. i'm still shaking from the fall, but i'll be ok. i just wish i could shake the feeling that society is full of people who just don't give a fuck about anyone but themselves. it's hard not to when you witness something like this first hand. it kind of solidifies how much this city sucks as far as people are concerned. i'd like to think that it's not this bad everywhere.