Mind

She shimmered in the sunlight.... yes! She sure did! At least that's what it looked like in the naive mind of the little man that stood in the far corner of that little crowded fast food restaurant. Hunched back in the little wooden chair, he resembled a curiously naughty child who was ducking from the scolds of a disappointed parent. She brushed past him swiftly, almost knocking down the plump waitress swaying back and forth with a tray of diet coke. She dashed out into the road through the glass door, and stopped hard in the centre of the sidewalk, almost toppling over her own feet. She dashed her eyes sideways, as if in search of something, and sped across the street barely missing the incoming traffic. The little man in the restaurant, barely noticing he was holding his breath, stood up almost immediately and followed suite. Similarly dashing across the street, he quickened his pace taking shot sharp breaths. Turning briskly around the corner, almost trampling over her, his eyes met with hers. She had looked up just in time to catch his stare as she shuffled through her bag in search of her keys. In what almost seemed like a lapse in time, he had got his hands firmly around her neck, and she had limply passed out onto the concrete that had been haphazardly laid outside her apartment some months back...

She woke crumpled on the floor of her own sitting room. There he sat, staring with that half smile spread awkwardly across his face. She shut her eyes briefly, trying to hold back the sick feeling in her throat. "Bailey!" he whispered with a tone of excitement. "Bailey!" he said again, this time with more force and a faint tone of anger! Weak and faint she tried to stand, tried to move, nothing, anything???! Then she bore down at her own feet in horror. Only then did the whole image fill her mind and realization dawned in causing her to enter a fit of pain coupled with screams. The blood seemed more ghastly not because it lay spread out all over her brown furry carpet, but more due to the fact that it was her own. She threw her arms out in a desperate fit to grab at the man who sat just a few inches from her mangled cut off limbs. Then the rage seemed to overpower her functions and she collapsed, hitting her face on the edge of the table as she fell....

The little man could not seem to understand her screams as the girl awoke from her faint state. He had set her free, saved her as a matter of fact. To him she was the little lamb caught outside the pen, and he was the armed farmer that got her out of the wolf's grasp. Instead the lamb struggled under his protective grasp, and this infuriated him. "Don't do that," he said, flashing her his disapproving look. "Why do you always do that?" he said, as if muttering to himself.

Under the heavy set eyes, the girl could see the lines of fatigue and distress, and she wondered what it is that had driven this mad man to target her. She thought about this morning, the phone call that had promised to change everything, and it all seemed like a blur. She quailed at the sight of her limbs, and panic shot through her like a sting. "He's going to kill me!" she thought, "This mad man is going to end it all!" Bringing her left hand to her face, she felt the damp cold streak of blood on her cheek, the realization awakening the pain that shot through the left side of her face. "What do you want from me?" she screamed at the man with all her rage, but the words sounded muffled and distant to her ears. She stretched her hands feeling the area around her, and her hands fell on a heavy blunt object. She grasped it so tightly it cut through her palms as she reeled it around from the back and instinctively threw it at the little man. The object glistened in the streaks of sunlight as it passed directly through the man's head and hit the wall splitting into various shards of glass...

She had missed him. She must have. That was the only reasonable explanation as to why the little man now stood peering down right in front of her instead of lying down in a pool of his own blood. Had her mind played tricks on her and forced her to imagine a weapon in a desperate attempt to break free from the pain? Was this nightmare ever going to end? What had she done to the universe to deserve this? What could be the reason behind all this? What....

The hoarse voice cut through her thoughts like a sharp saw through raw meat, "Get UP!" he seemed to scream at her, "Get up i said, and do not make me make you!" shouted the little man. "He is mad!" she thought as panic started to shoot through her veins. "Do you hear me? I said get up RIGHT NOW!" he screamed impatiently, slapping her swiftly across her bleeding cheek. "I can't, you moron! Look at my legs! Look at what you did to me you maniac! Am going to kill you for this, KILL YOU!" she screamed back at him. The little man reached down and grabbed her by her left shoulder yanking her up with so much force she felt the joints snap out of position. Trying to grab onto something for support she suddenly realized the absence of pain, the feeling of floating through the air. She looked down in utter shock at her own feet, still intact with her manicured toes and blue flip flops....

She circled the small round wooden table for what seemed like the umpteenth time. Trapped inside her own thoughts, filled with the rage of a wounded animal and clouded by the smog of her own confusion, she continued to pace around the room. Had it all been a strange concoction in her lonely mind? Had the five years ever since her sister moved out of their apartment left her with an urge strong enough to imagine a killer desperate enough to hold her captive in her own house? And if so, what did this really mean? Was she going mental? Was she in need of care, pity? Or was she just a victim of the effects of the last three sleepless nights she had unwillingly had?