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166 Path (2). I was driving my daughter to a football game at the high school and I ran into a young boy. I had turned the corner onto the street fronting the school where cars were pulling to the side of the road to let their kids out. From out of nowhere a boy ran right in front of me, or at least at the time he seemed to come from nowhere. It was as if he fell out of the sky. Driving slowly, even so I couldn’t brake fast enough or swerve out of his path. I heard a thud and then he bounced to the side of the road. He lay on the curb for just a second, a second in which I thought my heart would explode, and then he sprang up, coming back to life. I pulled to the side jaggedly, sticking half out into the road, my car door open, stumbled out and ran to him. At the same time his father was running to his son. When I reached him, his father already had his arms around him, and said, “He’s all right. A little shaken up, but fine.” I started to cry. The boy said it was his fault; he had run in front of me; there was nothing I could do. My daughter proceeded to her game, and I drove to a nearby park and slumped over the steering wheel, crying. Whether it was my fault or his fault, I hit a boy. What did it matter, finally, if it was his fault or mine. Assigning blame did nothing when the result could have been his body lying still in the grass. I was 167 lucky. The collision wasn’t fatal, wasn’t final, the boy got up and resumed his life. It wasn’t an important failure for anyone else, but the illusion that I could never hurt someone, that I don’t hurt anyone, was shattered. ...

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