admit I felt so alone, the more I walked the stronger the fear grabbed hold of me. I could vaguely hear frightened peoples conversations from behind their closed doors and had to restrain myself from banging on their doors and begging them to let me in.
The passageways were empty, nobody wanted to come out and those who did were already on the street. So I continued my walk, I was bent over trying to get a lower sense of gravity in case the shaking began again. As I got to the second bend of the passageway I saw a figure in the distance. In the darkness it was hard to tell what it was, or if it even was human, it moved so clearly it was alive. I took two deep breaths and slowly made my way towards it. The closer I got the easier it became to indentify it was a person. A women with their back to the wall and head in their lap crouched up shivering and moaning.
I approached her and took a knee,” Excuse me, excuse me miss are you okay?’’No response she just kept rocking back and forth into the wall.
”Miss it’s alright now, it’s all over.” I tried sounding as passive and compassionate as I could ,but the more I tried to console her the more erratic she became, rocking faster and hitting the wall harder.
I reached out and grabbed her shoulder trying to calm her down. She lifted her head; I retracted my arm and fell over wide eyed. It was her, after all this time, all the situations I could have met her in, I meet her now in a panic scared for her life. She stared at me, frightened to the soul. Her eyes staring into mine; begging me to save her but before I could say a word it happened a third time. The building began shaking this time harder, large slabs of concrete separated from the roof and you could hear the violent thudding sounds as they met with parked cars below. Screams echoed throughout the town louder than before and panic set in. She leapt across the floor, threw her arm around me and started digging her nails into my back. The more it shook the harder she tightened her grip. I put my arm around her back and the other on the back of her head. I tried reassuring her everything was okay, but she could hear in the tone of my voice I was as petrified as her.
Just as before the shaking quickly came to an end. Slowly she peeled her face away from my shoulder; her face was masked with runny mascara and her bright blue eyes where now red, bloodshot from all the crying, for a moment she just looked at me through the dim light.
Then she spoke, “You!’’, I smiled she had recognised me from the day I spilt my trash all over her. “How are you feeling?”” Do you need some water, I can go get you some water?’’ I was so eager to please.”No stay, stay here I don’t want to be alone right now.”
So we sat there in the corridor for at least an hour. Saying nothing, just listening to the commotion happen all around us.
Slowly people started to emerge from their doors, the lights returned and questions started circulating. Everybody wanted to know what was going on, no one felt safe and as humans do when ever a panic sets in speculation soon follows. Just as I had heard the people on the streets do, people in the building also began speculating what was going on.
”It’s them, you all know it but hell, you people are too ignorant to acknowledge it, they are coming for us, they did this to us.”
A group of people had formed just a few meters away from us. The speaker of the unsettled mob was an overweight paranoid woman who went by the name Mrs Jenkins. She lived her life thinking most normal everyday occurrences were the plans of extra terrestrial trying to make our lives living hell for no apparent reason. The tubby lady’s only companions were six or seven cats and no one took her serious. A man from the back of the mob interrupted her with a more sound theory; he said he heard something about explosion going off in other large cities due to the build up of methane gas from under the sewers, somewhat a spontaneous combustion effect causing them. Then another woman spoke out and believed the shaking was from an earth quake in the ocean bed just a few miles from the city, she believed a tsunami would soon follow and panicked while trying to get everyone to take heed.
But Mrs Jenkins shut down all of their Ideas and began screaming even louder, this was the platform she always desired, this was her chance to deliver her message. “Are you so blind you cannot see its them, they are doing this to us, I tell you it is the aliens!”
”Shut up you crazy bat, aliens my ass!”From the back a cocky mans scratchy hard voice came.
”A sudden shaking of the ground, no reports, perfect weather outside, like hell it was aliens.””There’s only one logical explanation for this and I’ll give you a hint, they damn sure aint green, think a little darker meat sweet cheeks!” Mrs Jenkins quietly disappeared into the back of the mob as the man approached the middle, clearly she did not want to argue with him.
A tall old man entered the middle of the crowd. His face was petrifying, his arms wrinkled and marked from top to bottom with faded tattoos. On the side of his neck was a large swastika which looked as if it had been done in a drunken stupor, by a prison mate, with only a knife and pen ink as his tools. The man’s eyes fixed towards another man standing in his doorway. Who was quietly minding his own business listening to the crowd.
The man exited his doorway and confronted is accuser. “What are you implying sir?”
Sharif took a step out of his apartment, only centimetres from his door now. His children peeped from behind him and his wife stood right by his side. She was beautiful, like an Arabian princess her hair was tick and black, the skin as silkily smooth as olive oil, her eyes green contrasting against her dark skin. Even through all the commotion and with this mystery woman I had dreamt about for days now at my side, I could not stop myself staring at the Arab man’s wife who was a picture of true beauty. The conversation was getting heated and I had once again focused all my attention on the two men involved.
”You know damn well what I’m implying!”“Your terrorist brethren have something to do with this, this was done by your kind, admit it you Al-Shibaab, Al Qaeda, son of a bitch!”Sharif simply smiled at the man infuriating him even more than he already was.
” You ignorant old fool, something goes wrong and it is Arab related, do you not take into consideration that there hasn’t been one terrorist threat to the United States let alone the entire world in the last five years! Has it not occurred to you that it could just be the obvious hand of Mother Nature doing what she has done throughout time?”
”That don’t mean you goat marrying sons of bitches aint responsible for this one “the argument heated up. Both men readied for a physical confrontation.
Sharif pushed his girls back into the apartment and stepped out getting ready to tackle the man to the ground. But he was too sly for the Arab; he had slowly slipped his hand into his pocket and reached for his switch blade. We were about to whiteness a blood bath right in front of all these children, somebody had to stop this.
“ENOUGH!” The men ceased their squabbling .I could Identify the voice without even seeing him, It was Mr Smith our Landlord, The aggressive short man made his way through the pack.
”You back inside”, Sharif stared the man down
“Mr Muhammad back inside” Sharif turned his back and unhappily made his way into his apartment, his eyes still burned red hot with fury, he had been embarrassed in front of everybody and what was worse, he had been embarrassed in front of his family.
”As for you” he turned his attention towards the man who started the confrontation.
“Jacob you racist son of a bitch, if I ever ,I mean ever hear you speak about someone who lives in this building like that again it will be the last time you step foot in here.’’
“Now get your ass back to your apartment!”Jacob smiled and got right into Smith’s face.
“Or what little man little man?’’
Smith was certainly not the type of person to be easily intimidated, his years in the military had made him hard; he had seen more than his fair share of combat worldwide. He would most probably still be out there if he could have his own way. Smith was deployed on numerous occasions to differ
ent parts of the world fighting for the United Nation. But he was no relief, food brining truck driver for the U.N, no Smith was sent into the pits of hell, he was sent into places no sane person would go, from remote Congo jungles to icy snowy peaked mountains of Serbia; he took down many ruthless men and even rescued a Mexican Diplomat who had been captured of the shores of Los Cabos by the cartel while on holiday with his family.
Smith Actually lead the team that took down African Dictator Vincent Mandul and his Militia, which had run rampant in Ethiopia for at least a dozen years or so, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Ethiopians. Smith was a hard man, a man that believed in protocol, rules and direction. He was the perfect man to run a place like this and even though his days of combat had passed he still possessed the skill and frame of mind to hurt you if chose to disobey him.
“Or ill break those tooth picks you call legs and kick your crippled ass out onto the street.”The men’s eyes were deadlocked, poised on each other, like two testosterone filled bulls ready to lock horns.
”If you say so, you the sheriff around these parts’” Sarcastically Jacob raised his arms in submission then further mocked Smith by saluting him just to stop half way and run his fingers through his hair.