I’m 15 and I’m in a coma, I feel like I’m in a dream state of mind.  I’m above my body and I see people coming in to see me.  I see my sister come in with her boyfriend, he was African American but I didn't know she was in a biracial relationship, my father would not have approved of any of us being with an African American man.

It’s Summer time, I think I was around 5 years old.  The neighborhood kids were playing hide & seek and it was my turn to count.  I was on Home Base, which was the back porch of my sister’s friend Tina’s apartment.  Tina’s parents were estranged from one another.  As I sat there counting with my eyes closed, I heard several bangs.

There were always fireworks being lit, I just thought it was firecrackers and kept counting.  All of a sudden, the bangs started getting louder and it sounded like someone was lighting firecrackers and dropping them in a big can.

I was almost to 100 when the screen door flew open and Tina’s mom fell over me as she was trying to dodge bullets that were hitting her.  There she was laying there, blood was everywhere, and it looked like red paint.  It’s like a movie clip playing in my mind.

Later as I got older,  I found out that the sounds I thought were firecrackers being lit and thrown into a can was actually bullets riddling the washer and dryer that she past as she was running out the back door.  It was by the grace of God, or the Universe, that none of those bullets hit me.