Der Adler fliegt, bis Fleisch hier liegt. Der Mensch im Krieg, nur Blut genügt.
He kept following the man in the vest.
At first, it was just a handful of silly encounters, the two of them raising eyebrows in polite recognition, hung in the balance of fantasy and future. By the third or fourth week, though, they were already nodding, and by June, the man in the vest huffed, Guten Morgen, as he took his seat on the U-Bahn.
Michael didn’t trust him.
So, he began to follow:
9:10 am: The train pulls into the station and Michael finds a window seat, facing forward. He counts the seconds until the next station.
9:12 am: One hundred and sixteen seconds later. The train slows to a hissing stop. As always, the man in the vest stands, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a grocery bag. Michael wonders again what might be inside.
And so it went.
That’s what you do, right? Follow the leader.
And the following was nearly unintentional, even after Michael had decided to begin. They rode together just four more stops each day, exited en masse with everyone else, and wandered toward the tram. They stood, alone and together as the others filtered off the streets into businesses along the block. It’s hard to say what the other man was thinking, but Michael was clearly intrigued. The astute onlooker would have seen his furtive glances, cast like flower petals – the drama and rhyme pinned all on one hope: She loves me. She loves me not.
Michael and the man in the vest waited and boarded the tram. It was here each time, on this stretch of the trip, that Michael couldn’t muster the initiative.
9:22 am: Nowhere Man exits the tram at Nowhere.
Michael almost disembarked in June, after the Guten Morgen, but he kept finding excuses: He was expected in early at work to help recategorize files. He hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, and he was very hungry. The rain and sun on this or that particular day were too rainy or sunny.
Finally, however, it was indeed the weather of July that compelled Michael to rise and pursue. The temperature outside was sickening, the sun overwhelmingly unkind, the humidity unprecedented, and yet: Nowhere Man showed no signs of unzipping his vest, which was self-evidently designed for gray, brisk days. Michael swallowed a sob imagining him, in the vest, trudging through the fields of Nowhere, sweltering in the apathetic heat, alone.
Still, when the tram stopped, Michael moved slowly. It was scary, okay? The first time always is, and all subsequent followings develop as acquired taste. That first time, he didn’t want to know what lay across the burning horizon.
And he desperately did.
The sliding door almost caught his frame, but he elbowed his way out and spotted the man in the vest. Running.
Already sprinting at full-speed, Nowhere Man was at least fifty yards ahead. Michael shouted a hefty “dammit!” into the dense summer air and bolted in pursuit.
Into Nowhere.
The fields were saturated that year, but young; the harvest was months away. The dirt held promise, but as Michael stomped in weary slow motion, it provided only resistance. Nowhere Man ran like the innocent pursued. The soles of Michael’s tennis shoes hit the ground with adolescent reluctance – refusing to arise ever again – and yet arise they did, churning the soil like animals unwillingly yoked. Nowhere Man ran on. The sun trailed its wet and boiling rays back and forth the land, and everything became a mirage. The normalcy of the highway receded into the distance; the tram forged its own way forward. Michael shuffled deeper into Nowhere. Until, at last, the man in the vest stopped, before a stump in the middle of Nowhere, head down, hands unclenched. Michael shuffled faster.
Finally, when the hunter grabbed hold of the hunted, the first thing he noticed was the absence of sweat on the collar of his shirt. No matter, he thought, and buried his knee into the vest. Nowhere Man went to the ground, but Michael wasn’t satisfied. Something about the way he fell. Willingly. He brought his knee up again, connecting solidly with the back of the man’s head.
The grocery bag, forgotten, spilled its contents on the earth. An unopened bottle of wine. Bread fresh out of the fire. Receipts.
Consumed as he had been for months with the idea of catching his prey, Michael had no idea what to do now that it was finished. Nowhere Man lay on his face, silent. Michael sat down on the lonely stump.
And whispers filled his mind.
What are you saying? What are you saying??? What are you saying? What are you!! What?!
And the wind began to crawl across the earth.
I followed you.
And the insects swarmed across their bodies.
Who sent you?
And the sounds of Nowhere meant Nothing.