The Sidewalk

Joe was walking down the sidewalk. It was bitterly cold out, and his jacket didn’t do much to keep him warm. It was dark, although there was some light from the street lamps lining the road. To the right of the sidewalk was the road and then some buildings, mostly small stores and warehouses, all dark. To the left was a rise, and beyond that were some woods. Right next to the sidewalk though there were brambles and bushes. He felt very nervous, because of what he had to do.

He saw the woman walking ahead, some two hundred feet in front of him. His heart instantly began to beat wildly. He knew what was about to happen.

“Hey! Stop!” he yelled out. The woman stopped and looked back.

“What?” she asked automatically. He had not alarmed her.

“Run! Run! You have to run!”

“What?”

All of a sudden a figure swept like a shadow from the bushes on the hill to the left, right between Joe and the woman, and the woman screamed.

“No!” exclaimed Joe.

He saw dimly that the woman was holding some pepper spray, but she was still panicking, and the dark man lashed out with a knife and cut her throat. She collapsed to the ground. Joe ran forward. The dark man’s eyes pierced straight into his, and Joe could see an infinitely cold darkness within them. The shadowy man let out a long laugh and then disappeared back into the hills, with the woman’s purse.

“No, not again,” said Joe dimly. “No, no, not again.”

He was in front of the woman, seeing the blood rush from her wound and onto the gray pavement. “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

He collapsed on the ground, unconscious.

When he came to again he realized that he was standing upright and his mind was hazy. Just like the last time, and all the times before that. But the woman was not on the ground anymore, also just like before.

He started to run along the sidewalk as though he was jogging, the cold stars above twinkling indifferently, like big shards of sparkling ice. He saw the woman again, but she was so far ahead of him. There was so little time to do anything.

He had to do something different this time. But he had tried everything already. No matter what, it never changed. He had done every desperate thing he possibly could. A few times he had even done nothing.

He ran as fast as he possibly could. “Get off the sidewalk!” he screamed. “He’s coming!”

“What?” the woman cried.

Joe waved with his hand frantically. “Get off the fucking sidewalk!”

The woman was only hesitantly stepping off the sidewalk, because of course she could not see any danger.

Joe watched with tears in his eyes as the man came from out of nowhere again, out from behind the bushes, like a spider leaping out of a cave to catch its prey. His eyes glossed over as he watched the man grab her purse and stab her with his knife. Finally he realized what he had to do. The man had disappeared again into the forest, and Joe followed after him.

***

It had all started when Joe had actually been walking on this very same sidewalk. It had been cold and night just as it was now. In fact it was the very same night as it was now. Nothing had really changed, although for Joe it seemed as though an eternity had gone by. Of course it had not really been an eternity, but for Joe it might as well have been.

Before his hellish eternity had begun, he had been walking down the sidewalk. He didn’t have any reason for it, except that once in awhile he just liked to take a walk in the cool night air. It helped him to clear his head sometimes.

He didn’t see many people or traffic. Just one or two cars during his walk. Some of the stores were abandoned, and all were closed down for the night. They were mostly hardware and auto parts stores, and storage houses.

He saw the headlights of a pickup truck shining in the darkness. In the back of its bed were bundles of branches and wood. He heard a clanking sound and saw that things were tumbling out of the guy’s bed because they weren’t secured by enough rope. He waved at the driver, hoping he would stop. He should have gotten out of the way instead, because one board of wood tumbled out of the side of the truck and the end struck him squarely in his forehead going 40 miles per hour, knocking him out instantly.

When Joe had come to he felt perfectly fine. There was absolutely no pain on his forehead. The last thing he remembered was a very forceful jolt to his head. He was sitting on the ground. For a moment he thought that if there was no pain then he must be paralyzed, but he could move his legs and arms and everything. He got up, smiling. “Damn,” he said, feeling himself over.

Then he was confused, because there was absolutely no way he could not have some serious injury. He wondered if maybe he had just imagined the truck, but he doubted it. Why else would he have been laying there on the ground like that?

Maybe he was having some sort of crazy episode. He had seen something on TV once about people who blacked out and then did strange things, without even realizing it. Maybe he had hallucinated the truck and then gone insane. The thought made him feel very uneasy, and he looked around. That didn’t make much sense either because he was in the exact same place as he had been when he had been hit, and he had been sitting down when he came to. What the hell?

Maybe he hallucinated the truck, collapsed, and then awoken. Oh well, he thought. Whatever. I just want to get home, go to bed, and worry about this in the morning.

As he continued to walk along he noticed that there were in fact boards and branches scattered all over the road. He didn’t hallucinate the truck, then. He really didn’t know what to think about it. As he walked on further he noticed that there was a woman walking far ahead of him on the sidewalk. He thought that was strange. Could the woman have had something to do with this? He thought. If he had been laying on the ground unconscious she must have walked by, or done something to him. It didn’t make any sense.

Then he heard a rustling in the bushes to her left, and she screamed as a man jumped out. He attacked her with a knife. “Oh my god!” Joe exclaimed. He saw him cut her throat and then run away with her purse. Joe collapsed on the ground. That had been the first time.

When he came to again, he was really afraid because he realized that he had blacked out twice now, after seeing two very strange and seemingly unrelated events. He walked along, very unnerved, because the woman’s dead body was not on the sidewalk. Then, he could see the woman ahead of him, walking along as if nothing had happened. “Oh my god,” he muttered. He did not know what to do.

To his complete horror he saw the man jump out of the bushes, again, just like he did before. He killed the woman and stole her purse a second time. And for a third time, Joe fell unconscious.

The third time he saw the woman ahead of him, he yelled out, but it was too late.

The fourth time was too late too.

Every single time it was too late.

Once he tried running into the bushes, to see if he could stop the killer or distract him. As he was running through the bushes, he heard a rustling sound ahead of him and then a scream. He ran out onto the sidewalk, and saw the woman lying there.

Once he did absolutely nothing, and sat on the ground. He closed his eyes and plugged his ears. But that time the feeling was awful, and out of fear and curiosity he eventually got up. He saw the dead woman, and became overwhelmed. He did try it again a few times, but after a while he became so sick that he realized he could never do nothing again.

Joe had once heard that ghosts were like shadows of dead people. They were people who had lived unfulfilled lives. They could not go to heaven. He didn’t know if they were shadows of souls that had gone to purgatory or hell, or if they were just beings who could not quite fit in anywhere.

Joe had felt like one, because eventually he came to realize, or believe, because of course he couldn’t know for sure, that he had been killed by that truck. And now he was being tortured with the fact that he couldn’t save the woman, no matter what he did. The fact that the thing happened over and over again, no matter how many times he collapsed, made him feel as though he was a ghost, and this was his hell.

***

This time, though, he was chasing after the man. He could not see him because of the thick vegetation, but he could hear rustling ahead of him, and heavy breathing. He even thought he heard a strange, maniacal giggle once or twice. Finally he found that he was on a wide dirt path in the middle of the forest, and the killer was in front of him. He ran after the man, who was dressed all in black and was holding a knife and a purse. The man ran incredibly fast, but Joe could keep up.

Then the man turned around and swung out with the knife. Joe dodged backwards, and then lunged at the man, grabbing his knife hand and then punching him in the head with all his might. The man’s head twisted back, but it snapped back forward and Joe could that the man was grinning widely. The man had been smiling wickedly the entire time. Joe felt the man kick his legs out from under him and at the same time slash into his back with the knife.

Joe couldn’t scream. He lay there on his back, on the ground, completely unable to move but fully aware of his surroundings. He saw the evil man’s head hovering over him. But now the expression on the man’s face was serious, and almost kind, like a teacher’s. But it still retained a glimmer of that malice.

“Joe,” the man said. “All these times you try to get me. You can’t get me. It is not possible. There are some things you could try that you haven’t already, but you’re basically out of luck. You can’t kill me, Joe. You can’t save the woman. It’s the same woman every time you know, Joe. And I am the same man. And so are you. It’s all about potentiality, not actuality, because the same thing is happening over and over again. It’s about what could happen, not what is happening. You can’t make things right Joe, but you can try as many times as you want.”

The man stood up, then looked down at Joe, smiling. “You can’t beat me, Joe. You don’t know who I am.”

Joe saw the knife, right in front of his eyes. He could move his eyes but not his face. “I’m going to kill you, Joe,” he heard the man say. Then he saw the glimmer of the knife as it swung right at his face.

***

Joe opened his eyes. He saw a man’s face peering down at him.

“How are you feeling, Joe?”

Joe’s nerves were shattered, and he stammered as he saw the man’s face. He curled up into a fetal position because he was afraid the man was going to hurt him. He felt a gentle hand on his back.

“It’s alright Joe,” said a deep, comforting voice. “You can stand up now.”

Joe imagined that if God had a voice, this would be what it sounded like.

Joe stood up and saw the man in front of him. The man looked like a homeless person, with tattered jeans and a ratty jacket. He had gloves with holes in them and old worn out boots. He wore a thick cap and his face was dirty and scraggily with gray stubble. The man was black.

“Who are you?” asked Joe.

“I’m a crack dealer,” said the man openly, laughing as he said it. He had a deep laugh. “Do you have any money?”

Joe just stared at the man.

“Come here, sit down for a second, Joe,” said the dealer. He walked over to the small hill next to the sidewalk, which was steep enough for him to lean his butt against while still being somewhat upright. Joe did the same.

The dealer took a Ziploc bag from inside his jacket. Joe saw little rolls of paper inside it. “Want some?” he asked.

“What the hell is going on?” asked Joe.

The man carefully tucked the bag back into his jacket.

“Why, that’s a good question, Joe. What do you think is going on?”

Joe stared blankly at the man and shrugged.

The man took the bag out of his jacket again and pulled a roll of paper out of the bag. He lit it with a match and began to smoke it. He looked up at the night sky.

“Well,” he said. “I think you have a problem. Or at least you think you do,” said the man, looking at Joe and chuckling a little. “My name’s Scott, by the way.”

“Hi, Scott,” Joe said numbly.

Scott took a long drag on the joint he was holding. “Are you sure you don’t want some?”

“No,” said Joe emphatically.

“Good choice,” said the man. “This stuff if very bad for you.” He took the joint he was holding and tossed it into the street. Then he took the bag from his jacket and tossed it into the street like it was garbage. “Terrible stuff.”

Joe stared at Scott in confusion.

“So,” said Scott, sniffing. “What’s the problem?”

Joe looked around nervously, but he realized that the woman and her thief were nowhere in sight. That meant that the thing that was supposed to happen wasn’t happening right now.

“Aw Joe, think of this as an intermission. Like a lunch break.” Scott stared closely at Joe. “So what’s your problem?”

“Shit, what’s my problem?” asked Joe. “Well, I think I have a lot of problems right now. There’s a woman out there who is about to get killed, and I can’t save her.”

“Why not?”

“Because that man is going to kill her before I can help.”

“You know Joe, people can’t do everything. Right?”

“But I can’t do nothing, because that doesn’t help me either.”

“That’s right Joe. So what are you going to do?”
“I can’t keep trying, because… because the man told me that I can’t. He told me I can’t do it.”

“Well what does he know?” said Scott.

“I don’t know,” said Joe dimly.

“Maybe I’ll just walk away,” he continued. “I’ll just walk in the other direction, and never look back. What would happen if I did that? Would it stay night forever, just like this?”

“No Joe, nothing lasts forever. But…”

“If nothing lasts forever, then how come I am stuck like this?” asked Joe frantically.

“Well, this won’t last forever because you’re not going to let it.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I think I do Joe. Some people might not keep trying to help. Some people might walk in the other direction. And if you do then that’s fine. But I don’t think you will Joe. I mean, you can, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But I know you won’t.”

“Why can’t you help me?” asked Joe weakly.

“Joe,” said Scott, “I’ve never stopped helping you.”

“I’ll show you,” said Joe. “I’m just going to turn around in the opposite direction and go home.”

Scott shrugged. “Okay. Whatever you want, Joe. That’s fine.” Suddenly Joe’s vision grew hazy, and he felt himself once again losing consciousness. “Whatever you want,” he could hear, faintly.

Joe woke up. He was in the same position he had already found himself in many times that night.

“Oh shit,” he muttered, just because he knew what was coming, yet again. He stood up, and set off down the sidewalk, with really no plan. He didn’t know what to do, but he knew that he was going to keep trying.