I have to stop the man. My guide told me. At any cost, I have to stop the man.
That’s my purpose. I have to. I must stop the man making a mistake. A serious mistake. A life-ending mistake. I can stop him. I must stop him. It’s my goal. It’s the reason I’m here, now, pursuing him, chasing him, across time, across the nation, forever and ever, amen, until I stop him. It’s what I have to do. It just is. It’s what the guide told me.
It’s grey here. I can’t feel my feet. The man drifts in and out. Sometimes I see him clearly. Other times, he’s in the mist, or in the dark, or not there. The world fades away, then comes back, same as the man does. It’s usually the back of the man I see. I recognise him. Others are just shapes, shoulders, hands in pockets, grey on grey. But I know him. I don’t know why nor how, I just do. I think I’m a guided missile.
I’m not sure why I’m here. I’m not even sure who I am. I remember the past., before I met the guide. Hell, if we remember something, it’s gotta be the past, right? Unless it’s some kinda backwards déja vu. I used to be a writer. I don’t write any more. I’ve forgotten how to. I think I stopped when it got cold. So cold, the cold gets right into your bones. It hurts, then it tingles, then it’s OK when you stand up before it starts hurting again when you sit down.
The guide’s face is always in shadow. I think he’s dressed in green. I’m not sure how I know that. I was waiting for the tube one night and he walked right up to me. Walked isn’t the right word. He glided up to me. He spoke so clearly, the noise of the station just fell into the background. There was just the guide’s voice, clear, calm, ineluctable. He told me what I have to do. He told me I have to stop the man.
I have blackouts. Like, there’s a lot of my daily routine I don’t remember any more. Someone once said to me, if you get to work and you don’t understand how you got there, don’t recall leaving home, driving your car or walking down to the subway, you gotta get help. Like, help from a shrink. I need that. I really do. But there’s never time. I’ve lost the times when I have time. I’ve lost the downtime. I don’t remember the last time I ate a takeaway supper in front of the TV. I don’t remember the last time I sank into bed and let the bad day drift away while I floated on nothing. I’m just chasing headlong, running him down, hounding him and I sure as hell wish it would end and I’d wake up and life would go back to normal.
I know all our lives are shaped by shit that happened where we tramped around as kids. Our stamping ground. Where we first dated girls, first kiss, first time we dared go further than that. Slippery fumbling under clothes, clumsy coupling amid tree roots and bark chippings, spent too soon, then weeks of anguish till she came on and we both sighed with delayed post-climactic relief.
Those hot sensations, so recent, so far down in the depths of the past, so intense I thought I might die. When was the last time I…? I can’t remember. Carol was my first lay. Sweet, soft skin, moist lips, fragrant hair. I remember Carol like it was last night. I’ve forgotten when it was, though. It seems a long, long time ago. Bone-drying ages ago. What’s time? There is no time, not now. Time is what stands still; that is something I can never do. The guide told me. I must stay close to the man. I must follow the man always, until the last second.
Now, I know my job is to save the man, before it’s too late. I have to be there for the man, never let him out of my sight. I will know when the time is right. A flash of red, a rush of air, the blur of motion. I’ve seen it again and again, every time after I see the guide’s ancient face, the sequence playing around and around like a movie trailer. That will be when. That will be the moment, when I am to do my predestined duty.
I watch him in the pub. He feels like he’s on top of the world, I can see it. I remember feeling like that. Lots of times, a long time ago . Beer, warmth, friends nearby, you think life can’t get any better.
Wait, what’s this? I’m outside. On the pavement. There are people. No-one’s feet are making any sound. Everything is still. Time has stopped. An alley cat hangs frozen in mid leap from an overfull dumpster. The traffic signal is stuck on green, but the cars aren’t moving. And right there, stage centre in my field of view, is the guide. He raises a wizened, skeletal forefinger, and beckons me to follow him. My frictionless feet have no choice but to obey.
Shit, something’s following me. Right here, always behind me. I can sense its soft tread. I feel its presence. Crap, this is supposed to be Monday morning. I drink my refluxing coffee back down again as I head to the tube. Can’t be late for work.
I know it’s there but it never is. I turn around, real quick, when it’s almost level with me, right behind. There’s no scent, no breath, no audible footsteps. Nothing to see. It’s just… there. Always there.
It’s on me when I’m at work. I can’t focus because my mind keeps turning to it. My boss thinks I’m a dead loss because I drift off in meetings, scanning around the room, trying to catch the fleeting shadow of its presence. My references were shit hot so he’s putting up with me for now but his patience won’t last forever. I’ll lose concentration at a critical moment and that will be the end.
After work, in the pub, I try telling Dave. He laughs, then takes another pull at his beer. He tells me to get a grip and have another drink. Right now, it’s here. It’s behind Dave’s right shoulder. I can sort of see it. I don’t tell him, because I know he won’t take me seriously. It’s there, though. I know it’s there. Dave is talking to me. He’s repeating himself. Hell, he thinks I’m drunk. I’m not drunk. I’ve only had, what, a couple of beers. We’ve been here, wait, what time is it? He’s talking again. “What did you say, mate?” he shouts into my face. “You said something like, ‘I’ll lose concentration at the critical moment, and that will be the end.’”
He’s asking me what the fuck I meant. I don’t know what I meant. I can’t remember. He sounds pissed at me. OK, I get it. He’s telling the bar tender not to serve me any more. It must be time to go. Dave will help me get to the tube station; he’ll get me home, like he always does when I’ve had one too many. He’s a good mate.
He pulls my arm up around his neck and across his shoulders. I feel him support me as we had toward the door, out of the warm, beery phug, into the crisp night air. Wow, is the world really this beautiful? Orange street lamps glow back out of rain-shiny paving stones. The cool, gusty night brings me wide awake, a whole-body zing, every cell alive. I’ve never felt so alive. The street is full of people, heading homeward. The day is dying. They are all going somewhere, every one of them. They all have a purpose. With a rush of joy, I realise it’s no longer there. I’m rid of it. I take some of my weight back from Dave. I can stand up quite well now. There’s the white glow of the tube station. Almost there.
The guide leads me down to the tube platform. Strange, it’s Friday night and the pubs are clearing out. The platform should be eight deep from the yellow line, hot, dusty wind belching out of the tunnel as the train rushes in, the guards yelling at everyone to keep back, away from the platform edge. I get it; people are drunk, they think they’re invincible. They could stop a tube train like Superman.
The guide’s age-old eyes, sapphire bright and steel hardened, flash and fade as his apparition dissipates for what I know is the last time. The moment has come. It is now. I must act. He is here. I see the man.
There is another, holding him up. The other does not know what is going to happen, but I do, for the guide has told me. The man will throw himself onto the tracks, ahead of a speeding train, unless I stop him. It is my destiny to stop him. It is why I have followed him for… I don’t know how long. Everything depends on now.
I am ready. I see the man stagger forward, his arm still across his friend’s shoulders. Others are here now, too. The fade from grey, as though they were here and they were invisible. They drift into view without moving. They were always here and now they are really here, the Friday night pub crowd. The man is in front of them, between them and the empty tracks.
The man stumbles and, in that instant, his friend sees me. Those living eyes lock onto mine and the friend’s face disintegrates into a screaming, melting mask of pure terror. Reflexively, the friend pushes the man forward towards me, then pivots and bull-charges the platform crowd, yelling, shouldering his way through until he is gone.
The man has caught me off balance. There is a sound, a warm rush of dirty air. Bright lights approach us, fast. My lately obedient feet scrabble for purchase; we pass the platform’s edge, the rim of white paint, the stutter of the concrete grooves, and then we are over.
As we drop to the oily trackbed and the gleaming, teeth-sharp rails, as the hurtling behemoth, all red-paint and blue-white head lights, overruns us both in a clattering, rattling roar of steel and power, I recognise the face of The Man, and I scream, my dead voice lost in the nails-on-chalkboard screech of brakes and the crowd’s visceral, unison cry of horror.
The Man’s face is the one I know better than any other.
It is my own.
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1 comment
Oh ! I like this ! I really like the way you lead us into contemplating if the man is himself all along, yet tease that he might really just be drunk … weaving in and out of memories … and then bang ! Smash! There’s the train . Great read !
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