Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons.
Laughter does not deny pain. Laughter - like a wail - acknowledges and replies to pain.
Imagination is a killer.
What happened, and what might have happened?
Storytelling is the essential human activity. The harder the situation, the more essential it is.
It's not just the embarrassment of tears. That's part of it, no doubt, but what embarrasses me much more, and always will, is the paralysis that took my heart. A moral freeze: I couldn't decide, I couldn't act, I couldn't comport myself with even a pretense of modest human dignity.