Against Myself

The chilly late-September breeze rushed through the narrow streets, rustling the leaves, already peaked with the yellows and reds of autumn. Children laughed and played, and the rather pleasant hustle and bustle of the small town could be noted. However, as I ran through a maze of cobblestone alleys, people stopped what they were doing to watch me pass by. Alarmed by the bright shade of red in my cheeks, only a few dared to ask what I was doing. I didn’t have time to care, though, as I sank down on a bench and recalled the previous hour’s events.

I had been sitting on the couch, watching a rerun of an old soap opera, only because there was nothing else on. The doorbell had rung then, and I had gotten up and lazily stretched before I opened the door. A letter lay on the porch step, and as I bent down to pick it up, I had heard the mail truck pull away to finish the rest of its deliveries. After going back inside, I flipped the small envelope over in my hand to find the sender. However, instead of finding a name, I had found the words “Millford Bakery”. Surprised at why a bakery would send me a letter, I ripped open the envelope, my eyes widening as I read through the tiny print. All it had said were four words: be there or die.

Now my thoughts wandered back to the present. Cautiously taking my head out of my hands, I looked up to the store I was sitting in front of. As I squinted past the glare of the sunlight, I saw that I was at a small bookstore. I stood up, looked around, and walked through the small door. A man stood behind the counter with his back to me, but I could see his matted gray hair underneath the Red Sox baseball cap that he wore. I jammed my clammy hands into my pockets, my mind telling me to turn around and go to my Aunt Betty’s place, as I had planned. But another part of me wanted to go to Millford Bakery. I cleared my throat, and with as confident of a voice that I could manage, I said, “Do you know where Millford Bakery is?” The man turned around slowly, peering at my face. Then he motioned for me to come closer. I stepped forward, and repeated my question with a louder, less squeaky voice. The man looked down at the floor, and then flashed me a toothy grin. “Three blocks South,” he said in a croaky whisper. “Three blocks South.” Then he turned around once again and resumed shelving books.

Not knowing what to do or say, I briskly walked back outside, shutting the door behind me. As I looked back into the bookstore, I couldn’t help but wonder about the man I had just seen. In my seven years of living in the town, I had never seen him. So, my first instinct was to turn around and walk to my Aunt Betty’s house, which was four blocks north of my current location. But my legs didn’t obey, as I found myself heading south, away from safety.

I trudged through the crowd, which seemed to get larger in size with every passing minute. After what seemed like eternity, I stood in front of an old, shabby building, with the paint peeling and the windows cracked. As I peered up at the signpost, I confirmed my dreaded hypothesis that this was indeed Millford Bakery. “I can still go back,” I tried to say to myself, wrapping my scarf tighter around me and stepping forward against my mind’s will. I knew it was a bad idea, but my body only obeyed the tiny part of me that wanted to go inside. As I stepped into the musty one-room building, I coughed at the amount of dust accumulated on every surface. The only source of light was the setting sun’s orange glow coming through the window, creating a dark, eerie feeling.

Just at that moment, I heard the shuffling of footsteps, and I froze, holding my breath. My eyes widened as I felt a sharp metal object touch my throat lightly. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the knife to cut in deeper, imagining myself crumpling to the floor. Inside, I was scolding myself for coming to the very place of my death on purpose. On the outside, however, I was rigid with fear. Panic swept through my body, and only after a few minutes did I realize that the knife was gone and I was alive. Turning around abruptly, I saw that the place was deserted. Confused as I was, I ran out onto the streets, not looking back, a surge of joy spread through my body. “Perhaps,” I thought in my head, “it was a good thing that I went.” And each day after, I woke up appreciating that life and death are only a hair’s width apart; only bravery makes the difference.