The Watch – Part 252:

(Amy’s perspective)

After walking on slippery mud for minutes on end, when you eventually reach concrete, there is that moment when you have to adjust to the hard surface. Sometimes you have to stop walking to make sure that you have regained your balance so that you can continue walking, but sometimes, you keep walking, and usually, when you have to adjust, there is that slight step to the left or right as your top half decides to lean in a direction other than the one you’re walking in. Your legs have to find their strength once more after not having to work so hard on the soft surface of a muddy field. But you never fall over. It only lasts for a second, maybe not even that, and then you’re perfectly able to carry on walking as if nothing happened.

But when you wake up after travelling from one universe to another via the Void, your body is in a state of shock, and therefore, you struggle to adjust to the soft surface, let along the concrete, of which your weak legs can’t handle that momentary lapse of balance and you fall to the ground once more. And because it is concrete, when your hands slam against it, it doesn’t cave and cushion your fall, instead it stays in one place, and your hand caves, and if you are unlucky, there may be a number of stones littering the ground beneath your hands. When you hand slams against the ground and your hand is the one that caves, the stones pierce your skin, stabbing the palms of your hands, cutting them. Sometimes the stones may stay in your hand, preventing the blood to drip out, but if they are too heavy and didn’t pierce in the right angle, they will fall out, and the blood is allowed to escape.

Your knee caps are sensitive, and can render you unable to walk properly for a couple of hours afterwards, you have to limp instead, so if you fall wrong, there is that possibility of your knees slamming against the concrete, sending that strong pulse of intense pain to your brain. That red-hot pain momentarily renders your paralysed as your brain can’t do anything except process it, but when it has fully handled it, it reopens the gates to let in all the other messages, including the intense pain from your hands.

Once you’re down, you don’t move for a couple of seconds. You lay there wondering what happened. Then, when you’ve figured it out, you start to sort out the mess you’re in and begin the journey back to your feet. The problem you have then is that your knees are unwilling to comply because although they may not hurt as much stationary, the moment you move them, they start to protest. The moment they shout at you to stop, you do so. But you know that you can’t remain laying on the floor forever, so you must push yourself back up to your feet, and so although it is painful and your knees do whatever they can to prevent you from doing so, you eventually stand up.

But now comes the tricky part. Walking. You know how to walk. You’ve been doing it for years. Do you remember actually being taught how to walk? Well, you may have been too young to remember that, but those people that tell you the story of how you first began to walk, they never say that you were given lessons, you just got up and walked. The shock that you receive from falling to the ground renders you unable to walk, and you don’t know why. Is it because you know that you are going to fall over again due to knees not wanting to move, or is it because you’ve simply forgotten? Well, of course it’s because you are in pain. You can’t walk normally any more, you have to do the other thing. Limp.

You place the leg that doesn’t hurt as much, if not at all, down on the ground and you step forward, but then you have to put the leg that does hurt on the ground. You must do that if you want to walk forward. You start doing so, but it hurts so much, so as quickly as you can, you transition from one to the other. Then you take another step, and then another, until you’ve built up a nice momentum to carry yourself forward, until it becomes natural to you, until your knee doesn’t hurt as much.

Usually, when you walk, you are heading towards a destination, be it somewhere else or back where you started, but you always know where you are going. But if you find yourself somewhere unfamiliar, you don’t have a destination in mind. All you can do is walk forward and hope for the best that you will get somewhere that is familiar. But when you are limping, and you’ve built up a momentum, all you want to do is get to that destination, so that you can stop and rest there for a couple of hours before having to endure another painful walk to another destination. But when you are walking, and you don’t have a destination in mind, your natural instinct is to stop where you are and figure where you need to go from there, but when you are limping and you don’t have a destination in mind, the last thing you want is to stop, because if you do, you may fall back down to the ground, and if you do that, you would cause even more damage to your body, and if you do that, you may not be getting back up for a while afterwards. You have to keep moving, yet you don’t know where you are going. So you continue walking anyway. You have to figure out where to go whilst continuing forward, even though you may turn in the wrong direction.

I said that I would try and find shelter, be it a bus stop or under a bridge where I would wait until the rain either eases or stops completely, but I can’t find any such places. All I can do is continue walking forward in the pouring rain, with cuts on my hands and injured knees.

All I can do is continue walking forward.

‘Are you alright, dear,’ someone said behind me. I stop walking, but before I lose my balance once more, I start turning around.

‘You look like you’ve been through the wars,’ an old lady said sympathetically. She had a curved back, making her appear shorter than she actually was. She was wearing a long rain coat complete with a clear waterproof bonnet covering her curly white hair. Behind her, she was pulling a trolley that appeared to be stuffed with everyday items, including a box of cereal, a cabbage, and a carton of milk. If I had to hazard a guess at her age, I would say she was in her early eighties.

‘Is there anything I can do help you, dear,’ she said with soft and gentle voice.

‘I’m looking for shelter,’ I answered.

‘Don’t you have a home to go to?’ she asked curiously.

‘I’m lost,’ I said bluntly.

‘Oh, you poor dear,’ she said, placing her hand on her chest from shock. ‘You are going to catch your death of cold out here, and look at you, you’re all covered in mud. Come with me, I’ll take you back to mine. There, you can wash up and have a change of clothes. Once you’re fully rested, we can find your way back home.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘Please, don’t thank me. I’m just doing what any good citizen would do,’ and she continue her journey home with me limping closely behind.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)