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Night Mind

The mood oozed around us like the miasma of a fog……it was sharp, it had teeth, it ebbed., flashed then faded.

Was it only I that was aware of it? It couldn’t be…it was obvious in the way his eyes kept darting to the mirror, the way his head turned, in little jerky motions, checking to see what was there.

What was there? Did I know? Did he know? Was he wondering if I knew and wasn’t letting on……

The light changed, and we moved forward through the intersection, wet and slick with the ongoing downpour, lights of every shape, colour and mood bouncing off the syrupy wet pavement. The rapid-fire drumbeat of rain against the roof, slashing against the glass…the THAP/THWOP/THWAP as the windshield washers struggled to beat back the onslaught. The mistiness caught within the glass only heightened the sense of mystery,

As again, the cab driver shot a glance at the rear-view mirror. What did he want…was he checking if I was still there?  Through, and, past the city streets, car swaying in soft swooping counterpoint to the dips of the roadway……I stole a glance behind me, back through the mostly fogged up rear window, down the corridor of abandoned, lifeless buildings, the structures that seemed to close in behind us….it was, I thought, just like the wake behind a boat, as it re-meets in the dead centre of its’ own trail, the tail quickly flattening out as  if we had never been there.

And just then, materializing out of the darkness and the rain, I saw it……a moving blackness, its’ shadow flowing into and out of all the other shadow around it. I strained, harder, my hand scrabbling against the glass, trying to clear a viewport, trying to see, if what I could see was what I thought I was seeing.

And, I sensed, maybe by his heightened breathing, that the driver was becoming increasingly nervous. His backwards glances were obvious now, the strain of his neck to see what had transfixed me so. I turned myself slightly, so that he could see me better, could see me almost full-face, could see the glint hard of metal beneath my jacket lapel, so he, might, finally understand. He should know, he should be made clearly aware, that his end was near, and that I…….. was sent there to deliver him to it.

I smiled at him, with all the grace and compassion I could muster, and as his eyes were widening in a sudden realization, I softly said,   “Who….in their right mind…..would want to die, on a night like this?”