SLOW AND QUIET, DRIFT AWAY
by Barry Ergang
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Barry Ergang
Originally published in Philly Talk, June/July 1970 issue
Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.
The cool, quiet serenity of the night is blasted by the pounding of footsteps on the sidewalk. You turn toward the sound behind you, the darkened storefronts on your right sweeping past your vision in a quick blur, when you feel the sudden hot shock of impact, the riving of flesh, the pain surging down your spine. A howl of pain and fear rips from your mouth as a pair of hands grabs at your shoulders and arms from behind. A pale, featureless face bobs hurriedly in front of you, and you feel his hands probing your pockets and tearing out their contents. A sharp scream rends the air, and you realize it is you, crying for help. The hands let go, the bobbing face disappears, you are suddenly unable to hold your own weight and you are falling. A second later there is an explosion in your skull and the world is red and boiling.
From far off you can hear the sound of moaning: monotonous, unceasing, chantlike. There is blackness, a thick palpable black--suddenly dotted with specks of light. The night sky...dim, hazy, as if seen through a film of gauze. You realize again that the moaning comes from you. Beyond the moaning, footsteps clatter away down the sidewalk.
With the awareness that you have been assaulted and robbed comes the renewal of the pain, with that the sensation of a warm stickiness draining beneath you.
Why? This couldn’t happen to me. Why? Won’t somebody come and help?
Your eyes strain from their filmed-over view of the sky to look out and ahead at the blank, black-walled buildings across the street. A light winks on in the blankness, a figure is visible in silhouette against it. Help me...your brain says the words and your mouth works vainly to shape them. No sound comes out. No sound at all, save for the thrumming moan that seems to have a will of its own, uncontrolled and undirected.
Your eyes roll up and back in an effort to see behind you. Through the film there is the expanse of night sky, a blur of stars, the searing red pain behind the eyes. Move your head. You pause to marvel at that, at having to order yourself to perform the most natural, mechanical task. But you set to it as if it were the most strenuous task you ever had to perform.
Sound rolls over you suddenly as if you had just awakened from a dream, a gaggle of voices blending and merging into a cacophonous gibberish with no meaning. People! They’ll see me, they’ll help! Maybe they heard me scream and are looking out their windows. They’ll see me and help.
A woman’s voice, shrill above the gibberish: “There’s a guy just layin’ down there! He might be dead! We better call a cop.”
“It’s none of our damn business!” a man yells. “Get back in here and shut that window!” The incomprehensible gibbering of collective voices resumes its murmur.
Please, somebody help me.
But there is no one. You lie here for...how long? You have no idea. Time doesn’t matter any more. It has been replaced by the pain. You dare not try to move. You can feel the wound, the rip in your flesh that might rip wider if you move at all.
So you lie still. And listen to the turbulent pounding of blood that has begun in your head. And wait.
A long time--perhaps only a few minutes--later, your eyes closed, enveloped in painful lonely darkness, you hear the sound of footsteps clapping briskly along the sidewalk. One of the walkers is a woman. You can tell by the distinctive sharp striking of high-heeled shoes on concrete. The footsteps grow louder as they approach, and you know that there are at least two people coming toward you. They must see you now because they take up an excited murmur. Their steps slow, almost cease, then whisper on the concrete as they approach warily.
I won’t hurt you! I’m hurt myself, I’m bleeding God I might be dying!
The footsteps stop altogether, and you can sense the people standing above you. With painful urgency you force your eyes open. Even that small movement is charged with pain. The blood-beat in your ears is the only thing you can hear now. Through filmy eyes you can see their faces, curious, vaguely apprehensive faces. You cannot make out their features, but the black hollows opening and closing in each of the faces indicate that they are talking.
You watch and try to move your mouth again. No sound comes from it except the moan, that invincible moan. The movement doesn’t seem to be your own; it is a detached, almost psychically controlled willing that makes your mouth move.
Please help me help me brain says words mouth works it’s futile all futile.
The faces look from one another to you and back again. The black hollows open and close and the blood roars in your ears blotting out sound and thought. The faces shift, move No no stay please help me you sense rather than hear the shuffling of feet. You watch, moaning, trying to speak, trying to articulate the moan Help me I’m hurt please help as the faces, slow and quiet, drift away.
About the Author
Former Managing Editor of Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine and First Senior Editor at Mysterical-E, Barry Ergang’s fiction, poetry and non-fiction have appeared in numerous publications, print and electronic. He was the recipient of a Derringer Award from the Short Mystery Fiction Society for the best short mystery story of 2006 in the Flash Fiction category. His website address is http://writetrack.yolasite.com/
Discover other titles by Barry Ergang at Smashwords.com:
A FLASH OF FEAR: Six Very Short Stories
(http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/22337)