TOTW

Here's the winning story for The Theme of the Week. . .

Bright, blood-red light flashed in front of my eyes. The vein near my temple pulsed as I pressed my fingers into my head. Focus. Concentrate. For the average human, these were commonplace words. Words that symbolized the mental capability to think pointedly towards something. But focus could be so much more. Concentration could be so much deeper. Intense thought was not the limit. Thinking could go so far beyond the mind – into the heart, soul, very spirit.
     That is where I was on a dark, muggy night in a New York City parking-lot. I had been running all my life from governments, mostly. They wanted to use me for research. Experiments in warfare against each other. Russia, Germany, Great Britain, the U.S. - but they were not all. There were the street thugs. They wanted me because I was useful to them. I could help them grow powerful, escape the authority, and get away with larger crimes. As I squeezed my eyelids shut and focused my being on the evil I knew was nearby, I felt something. Not on the outside of my body, as if someone reached out and touched me, but on the inside. Like a pinprick in my stomach. There it was. It was male, and he was not afraid. He was circling, I could tell, around the back of the parking-lot. Behind the chain-link fence where the three trees were. I turned to face that direction. Now that I had found where he was, the focus became less intense, the concentration less honed in. I could do little more until he drew closer.
     Finally, I sensed him step towards me. That was all I needed. Dropping to my knees behind a minivan, I leaned forward to learn as much about him as I could. He was tall and lean, yet athletically built. He was still not afraid as he stepped closer, closer. I waited in the pitch black without a sound. And then his voice sliced through the night like a scalpel.
     “I know you are here, Lorinne. There is no need for you to hide from me. I will find you. Standing, sitting – whatever you may be doing now, will just cause you to be worn out. No one, not even you, can be still and quiet forever.” The man's laugh grated through my mind, but he could not make me break my focus. I knew I could do it. I knew I could kneel stone-still for hours and not grow tired. So I waited. I waited and did not shift or break my focus for even a second.
     As I knelt there on the cracked pavement I listened to the man's breathing as he paced up and down between the scattered rows of vacant cars left in the parking-lot. He would walk stealthily one way, then another. He would stop, listen, and circle around another car. He was coming nearer to where I knelt.
     Then I felt it - a sort of sagging, of sighing, in his mind. He was only four feet away. He was tired, had let down his guard, and he was not ready for me.
     So I struck.
     I do not like physical combat. I hate to use my strength of body to win a fight, but these thugs and government men do not fight me with their minds. They refuse to reason, to listen to me. So I had no option. I dove out of my hiding place and in front of the man's long legs as he took a step forward. He tumbled over me and landed heavily on the ground. I twisted out from under his legs, which were kicking dangerously close to my head. I was up on my feet in another instant, but so was the man. He swarthy face was twisted into an ugly grimace as he thrust his gnarled hands at my throat. I stumbled backwards and slammed into the back of the minivan. With nowhere for me to move, the man easily grabbed my throat and began to tighten his grip.
    Even as I stood there, struggling to suck air into my burning lungs, I was not desperately afraid. His flesh was touching my flesh, so now I could stun him with my mind. I gathered up my thoughts. With all the will power I had been given, I focused my energy at the man leering down at me as I was losing consciousness. Then, after an eternity, as I was being sucked into the murky depths of oblivion, the man's clutch on my throat gave way and he fell to the ground. Pure, beautiful oxygen rushed into my lungs. I gasped in rapid breaths - nearly hyperventilating in my attempt to breathe again. Finally I gained control of myself. I looked down at the man at my feet. He was holding his head in his hands. I smiled at him as I regained my strength.
     “Tell your people to let me be. You cannot touch my art. You will never have it,” then I walked away. 

By Petra Waterstraat