Might and mighty

I walk down the street as the the day ends in town. The roads are wet and slippery, I can barely keep my feet from sliding away, slipping so unsteadily sweeping all the sorry looking see-ers of my town. I can’t look left or right or else I’d fall - I might. I take my time as though it could stop just for me. I walk in front only looking there too and just like that, like fingers snap, I finaly see home, I finally can stop the act. 

The last few steps before I make it to heat are the last bits of effort my body has to make. A few more seconds before I lay « a few more seconds » I say, just before this man finds himself in my way. 

“I am sorry” says the man, but what can I do but be mad - such a grey day and slippery alleyways, what am I to say to such a gentleman? I look him in the eyes I look at him and try to go through him, just a little bit, just enough to make him feel rotten, but not worthy of death, worthy only for a cleanup. I want him to feel how my day went. I want him to know firsthand how annoying his chosen path is. But he will not budge or show the slightest remorse, not even sorry eyes, not even one, just a smile and pity all over it. A nice smile, contagious with its joy. He might have seen the sun today, he might have a lot more than I. He might have seen his lover or friend. He might have gotten promoted, congratulated, paid maybe. He has not had a bad day such as I. 

So I answer: “I’ve just lost 2 minutes of my time spending them in the cold. All because you decided to walk over private front gardens you don’t know anything about.”

A grin and a laugh, a smirk and sweet eyes, all he shows me after that. 

“Well walking without sliding is a lot better, a lot easier on grass as well.”

I rolled my eyes and realising my path was finally free, I walk to the door and oh, how fine it is to be alone.

But this man, his face and these eyes, that smile, stuck to my brain, I can’t let it go, I’m on brain lock. I’m on brain lock. The keys don’t jangle anymore, not in my hands. The lock’s sealed, the doors shut, and I am locked inside this mind fabricated room with this man. A blacked out room with him and I on facing chairs and a spotlight just on us.

This man held something in his hand, but I can’t see what it is or just might be. All mighty he looks at me. All tall and strong he puts his hand in front of me. His eyes looking through me, piercing me and all I have lost, this man that looks like all I will never be. 

I look at his palm and can see just a blur, like something that does not exist, like something that might become but isn’t yet. I cannot connect the dots in my mind, I can’t make sense of what he gives me.

I don’t know if it’s an illusion or a stick in my brain keeping me from turning on my eyes. It all is an illusion but why does this part break? How come I cannot see only this? This unknown piece? I think I’ll never understand what it is or just might be, it might slap me all mighty and I’ll know. I’ll know when I’ll need to. And I’m calm again. I breath.

I look back up, back up into his eyes. But there are none to look into. Black small holes have replaced those eyes, those blue eyes this man had when I saw him. And all the joy from his smile, all the contagious happiness he exuded is replaced by an agressive devouring of the life around him. And as the opposite of what he was is sitting in front of me, I feel the opposite of what I’d felt. This feeling of opposition towards him and who he is has transformed into a slap in my face of what I have become.

And as the overwhelming realisation of what a horrible fucking company I’ve become, a tear falls down my cheek. Only one tear falls down, as if it was following a line, right down the line from my eye to the corner of my mouth and down to my jaw and the tear becomes a drop and falls  further down the line to the black ground that seems to be everywhere here. And I look at the drop on the floor, almost invisible with the lack of light. 

My body, my whole body seems to melt, to melt so fast I can’t do anything about it and I melt and get closer to the ground with drops of me covering the ground and the single tear drop and then I am no longer. I am no longer. I am in no man’s land between my earth and my mind. And I am like in no man’s time because, for the first time, it did really stop only for me.

And as my remains lie there covering more and more of the black room I seemingly wake up.

My eyes face the doors and my keys jangle in my hands. I turn the key in the door lock and my brain lock’s gone. I smile. I smile and enter my house. I close the door and the mirror in front shows me someone I haven’t been in so long I stay there minutes. I stare there minutes. And finally I let myself end the day in my couch slouching on it and falling into dream state. 

And the nightmare officially ends and I am changed. And this man’s life continues and for what did he meet me if I met him for this?