They Have To Stop

They have to stop… they have to. It’s a crosswalk. But no one ever stops—they just blast through, and I always let them. But not that day. I decided that I had to stand up for something.

The car was coming. Oh pretty fast too. 50 in a 30. That’s another thing, it’s not enough that they don’t stop, they speed. There are kids around. Families. I’ve seen families, big ones, just stand there and wait to cross until all the cars had passed, and it made my blood bleed. It defeats the purpose entirely. Why have a crosswalk here at all? The entire point, is that they have to stop…

Maybe I was hypnotized. Or maybe for once I just believed in something. I didn’t care what happened to me. One foot in front of the other and I was going. I’d timed it exactly so as to create a test for this particular oncoming car. To give them plenty of time to stop. And I pretended I didn’t notice them coming. I stared straight ahead, an oblivious pedestrian; I wasn’t myself anymore—I had become the Oblivious Pedestrian, fully; I could have been anyone in the entire town, and that was the point; that in a certain sense, I was everyone in the town. Of course I had noticed the car, moments ago, in the corner of my eye. Not only was it coming fast but I had noticed it was even accelerating. I heard the engine rev triumphantly. Well, that solidified me in my purpose even more. I swallowed. I stared ahead. It was cold out but I was sweating. I was holding a large iced coffee when it happened.

Maybe they’ll see me, last minute, and slam on the brakes. Then a strange idea came into my mind—maybe they did see me—maybe they had seen me a long time ago, and were as set on their course as I was on mine. We’re not even talking seconds anymore, but fractions of fractions of seconds, when these thoughts pass through my head. It didn’t matter what I was thinking anymore, though. Legs were moving, in a deliberately casual gait, despite how fast and desperate my thoughts had gotten. “They have to stop,” I thought, terrified—but then I clenched my jaw, closed my eyes, and thought again, this time indignant: “They have to stop.”

Full force. Body flung and coffee exploding like it was sniped. Bones breaking body exploding, and my consciousness drowned in bright light. There was pain, and screaming—my own? And what did that even mean now? Whatever happened, I couldn’t see any of it, it was all washed out by the great glare. Cops somewhere above me? Someone pronounces me dead? Someone explains panicked that he didn’t see me? Time stops moving, the light erodes my identity and absorbs my soul and I’m pulled into another realm entirely.

So yeah, pretty much died to prove a point right there.