Sanctuary on Madison

An Experiment in Pursuit

The man’s feet hit the cement and turned to go left around the corner. The oxfords collided hard against the pavement and sent up a sharp pain. He kept moving, shutting out the discomfort. The sidewalk was empty minus a couple of people going in the opposite direction. They looked up from their papers and coffees to see a dark blur bolting past them. But they did not see what he saw.

As he rounded onto East 49th Street, a great mob of oncoming traffic confronted him. It was a sea of people, with wave upon wave slowing him down. He could not stop moving, not with the impending darkness so, not when he could feel it upon him. With every beat of his heart, it was getting closer, mocking his attempt to escape.

There was nothing for it; he had to get to St. Patrick’s. He would be safe at the cathedral. The darkness couldn’t touch him there. He flung his body into the waves of bodies, and started forcing his way through. There wasn’t enough time to turn around for a different route. Pressing forward was the only option.

He had to make it three blocks.

Moving through the crowd, it was all he could do at first to avoid being swallowed. An old woman bristled as he lunged to the right. There was the feeling of hands grasping at him, but instead pulled came away with only a charcoal blazer. A couple of men could be heard stumbling backwards as the force of their pulling met little resistance in the empty coat. He ploughed forward, his head going down and connecting with the side of a street vendor blocking his path. The vendor hoped his weight would halt the man. Instead, the roadblock became a casualty that slowed the growing mob.

The man knew they could not understand.

Ahead was the corner of Madison and 49th. Two blocks left. The man kicked his right leg, hoping to connect with the head of whomever had latched onto his legs from the crowd. His foot connected, and a pain shot up through his leg as his oxford broke the person’s nose. He didn’t look back to see who it was. They released his legs and he scrambled to his feet. His efforts to steady himself ended as a rock smashed into his left cheek.

There wasn’t time to understand the damage, but the sensation of blood running quickly and smoothly down his face was impossible to ignore. His shirt collar soaked up the blood, turning the grey into a dark, almost black shade. The darkness felt close. Someone from the crowd yelled for the police as the man tried to keep moving through the madding pattern of taxis and buses to get across the street. He looked up at when he heard the screeching sound, only to feel the yellow cab slam into him. He rolled up onto the hood, clutching his hip.

The driver got out of the cab, but too slowly. The man was moving again. He faintly heard someone say he was crazy. Only 500 feet remained.

He couldn’t run anymore, but he was still moving. After the turn, he was moving with the flow of the mob now, and people only paid him the attention they would give a lost dog wandering the streets. The outcropping of St. Patrick’s lay dead ahead.  And for a moment, he felt relief. But then, for the first time, the man turned his head.

The darkness had rounded the corner. Getting hit by the cab had given it a moment to catch up. Once it saw the man, hurt and wounded, an eerie howl came out of where its mouth should have been. The man scrambled, fighting the pain that seared through his body. He could feel the bone in his hip rubbing now, and he felt sure it was broken. The frayed ends of his slacks were beginning to soak with blood. Somewhere a laceration in his leg began to rub against his clothing, worsening the pain.

Fighting seemed senseless. The long dark behind the man did not need to rush. He fell to my knees on the sidewalk, just steps away from the cathedral stoop. The tips of his fingers grazed the pavement. As he knelt, time seemed to slow and he searched the faces staring at him. There was nothing they could do. Tears welled up in his eyes, and they mixed with the blood trickling from the head wound.

The darkness wrapped around the man starting with the ends of his fingers, slowly creeping up the arms and legs. With each passing second, the dark excruciatingly exacerbated the wounds. The cold unhurriedly made its way up his body, causing the his hair to stand straight. It was waking him up, only moments after the pain had dulled his vision. As things began to move around again as they should, he heard people shouting, “Help! This man needs help!”

The long dark stopped before his face, blocking him from seeing anything else.

For a few brief seconds, the man’s face bore every ounce of strength and defiance that his broken body could muster. These last few seconds, he would let this darkness know that only his body lay broken. He could feel it crushing the last bit of strength he had.

Then, it let go.

Sirens drew nearer. Lights flashed, while people forced themselves into a circle. As the great dark withdrew, pulling itself out through his wounds, the man screamed in agony. Once it was gone, once the darkness had withdrawn, the man collapsed. His last bit of consciousness braced for the sidewalk collision. But it never came. The man looked up into the face of the priest just before falling into a deep unconsciousness.