By Judy Taylor

He stands, motionless, on the busy sidewalk outside the apartment that until this moment he shared with his wife. The light is all wrong, tinged with acid green. Sounds and smells are sharper, magnified. His head buzzes. A cloud passes in front of the late afternoon sun, and as the sudden shadow slides over him, he wonders if he is fainting.

Each hand grips the handle of a brown paper shopping bag. The one in his left is heavier than the one in his right. He stoops to set them down, clumsy bookends for his fine black shoes shining on the cracked pavement. Everything seems to be made of splintered wood and crumpled paper and shattered glass. He loosens his tie and opens the top button of his crisp white shirt. Breathe.

He rubs his sweaty palms against the trousers of his ink-blue suit and stoops again, grasps the paper handles, and begins to walk. The last rays of the setting sun pierce his eyes and split his brain in two. His sunglasses forgotten on the table by the door.

A woman with a briefcase overtakes him from behind, keeping her gaze fixed on a point in the distance as she brushes past in her long gray coat. A bearded man pushing a loaded hand truck approaches from the opposite direction, looking down at his clipboard. Two women in running gear jog by, engaged in a loud and breathless conversation. He is invisible. Loneliness washes over his feet and rises with each step, lapping in waves that push and pull at his knees, his guts, his throat.

At the corner he pauses. Traffic is heavy. He turns away toward the next intersection where a stoplight stands.

Behind him, there is a screech of tires. The crunch of metal. The thud of a body on asphalt.

He freezes mid-step, shoulders drawn up, eyes squeezed shut. Silence. Then an eruption of voices calling out. He stumbles forward again, meaning not to look back. Not to see. Not to feel.

But he can’t go on. He spins and takes it in. A motorcycle on its side. A helmet, empty. A city bus rocking and hissing, its front grill crumpled. Bits of glittering glass and plastic, still trembling where they fell, strewn over the blacktop like confetti. People crouch in a tight ring around a dark form on the ground. The wail of sirens swells, growing louder and louder, until the man drops his bags and presses his fists against his ears.

With paper handles gripped again, he threads between the vehicles that have been stopped by the whistle and white gloved wave of a policeman. Wide eyes and gaping mouths float behind grimy windshields as he passes. He reaches the other side of the street and begins to run, the bags swishing against his legs. He is running from the chaos, but toward what? 

When his mind is quiet, he slows his pace. His breath burns in his lungs. His white shirt, no longer crisp, is a damp rag stuck to his back under his suit jacket. A car rolls past, the thump-thump of deep bass notes vibrating the air, a pulse that matches the pounding of his heart as he staggers along the sidewalk.

Night falls. Streetlights come on. He walks, listing to the left. He switches the bags after a while and lists to the right, weaving on and on from one pool of light to the next. He follows a path into a park, past playground swings swaying in the wind, past picnic tables and cold, charcoal grills, stinking of last summer’s hamburger grease. 

He finds a bench under an oak tree and sits. He is alone. The cold of the stone seat seeps through his skin and into the marrow of him. He begins to shiver, and then to shake, until his teeth and his bones and his buttons rattle. Breathe.

He looks up into the indigo sky. Blinking lights, a jet far from the earth, silently traces an arc from east to west. Gauzy clouds wrap the full moon in a veil and then release it. His eyes follow the pale light, down and down, until he is looking at a man bathed in blue-white, standing in the middle of the park. His beard is shaggy and shot through with silver, and the rivets and snaps on his leather jacket catch the moonlight like sequins. From his right hand dangles a motorcycle helmet.

“Funny, isn’t it,” says the moonlit man. He is fifty paces away, but his voice is close, intimate. “How everything can change in an instant.”

The man on the bench springs to his feet. “Do you need help? Are you injured?”

The moonlit man shakes his head. “Caught me by surprise is all. Just when I thought I was in control.”

“Can you get home alright?” 

“I don’t have far to go.” He smiles and his white teeth catch the light.

“I should be going too.” The man draws his house key from his pocket and sets it carefully on the bench. Then he picks up his bags one by one. A book, an extra pair of shoes, his shaving kit in his left. Pajamas and a change of clothes in his right. “Take care of yourself.”

 The moonlit man turns and disappears under the trees.

                                                                          *   *   *

Judy Taylor learned early in life that making up stories and telling them as if they were true was called lying and frowned upon by her parents and teachers. But by writing them down, she discovered that lies became fiction, something prized by those same adults. 

Stories have always been important to her, beginning with hearing her father read Winnie the Pooh at bedtime. She continued this tradition by reading to her own children and sharing her favorite books with students as an English teacher.

Her short story “Funeral Pie” was published in The Lindenwood Review and “Black Ice” appears in Running Wild Anthology of Stories: Volume 5. When she isn’t reading or writing, she can usually be found wearing a gingham apron, preparing treats for family and friends. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and their rescue dog, Alfie.