Your Knees Are Pitifully Weak
You’re running on two hours of sleep. Then you’re walking. Slowing down, stopping, collapsing to the ground in a heap of bones and flesh and a sweatshirt so big it causes the sensation of drowning. The collapsing part isn’t because of the lack of sleep, though. You were wandering around in a half-asleep haze, and someone came up behind you and shoved, shoved so hard your pitifully weak knees couldn’t keep you aloft anymore, had no choice but to let you collapse to the sticky tile and stay. Pitifully.
They’re standing above you, halfway blocking the brightness of the nearest fluorescent light suspended from above, and they’re just looking at you. You would normally be on fire, or at least kind of mad about the situation, but you were just running on two hours of sleep. Then walking, slowing down, stopping, collapsing to the ground in a heap. Wait, no. You were walking, slowing down, stopping, shoved, collapsing to the ground in a heap. That’s why you should be on fire, should be yelling and shaking or asking why they did it, why they’re just standing there. You should be doing something, but instead you can’t even look at their eyes.
That isn’t entirely your fault, though. They’re wearing sunglasses, nice ones that probably cost more than a dog. A purebred dog, straight from one of those kennels where everyone wears clean flannels all the time. Wait, what? Now they’re standing above you and they haven’t moved, and you haven’t moved, and it really feels like someone should be moving. Or speaking. Or going home and going to sleep. Instead, you struggle to your feet, weak knees shaking, demonstrating their overwhelming weakness, being generally useless. Weak. You stand and you look them in the face since you can’t see their eyes and you take off their sunglasses gently and you drop them to the ground in the small gap of tile in between both of you not gently and you step on them and step on them and step on them and step on them. A crack appears in the shades. You smile and they don’t, but at least now you can see their eyes.
The eyes are filled with not flames exactly, more like the inverse of a flame, and suddenly, your knees don’t feel so weak, just a little raw from their time smacking against the floor as a result of being shoved by this thing, this someone. Your stomach, on the other hand, is not having the best of times. The inverse of a flame is not something you are always prepared to see when running on two hours of sleep. Well, running, walking, slowing down, stopping, collapsing to the ground in a heap on two hours of sleep. And right now you start running again, the cracked sunglasses staring up at the lights from the grimy tile and their not-flame eyes watching you go. ‘Why?’ is the only overwhelming thought in your head, but you don’t say it because who would you be wondering to? At least now you feel awake.
