Bob sat on the bench, watching the people that walked by, and looking for the robber, while he held his fork at ready.
He kept awake by whistling. When he got tired of whistling, he snapped his fingers. When he couldn’t snap his fingers, he tapped his feet. When he couldn’t tap his feet, he fell asleep. Snoring on the cold metal, the street lamps flickering in the night.
The trees wavered, and only one person walked the streets.
With ragged clothes, riding a bike, and fresh awake from a nap, the wheels on his bike wobbled.
From the squeak-squawk of the wheels, Bob woke up. His eyes fluttered open, and he stared at the man biking in front of him.
Brown hair, tall, ragged clothes, polite, average-sized, and nearly as old as him!
The man sped past him. He jumped off the bench, and ran forward, calling out various names, yelling out something unintelligible to the man.
But, he, with a fork in hand, overcame the bike and its owner, running faster than he’d ever tried. He barely wheezed and caught the man by the shoulder. A hand pushed him away.
“Stop! Stop! I told you to stop!”
“Goddammit. The neighborhood watch”, He heard the man murmur to himself
The bike swiftly turned left. Muffled, furious yells echoed through the neighborhood.
“Go away! I don’t have any money on me, and I’m definitely not the gas station robber.”
“But you look like him!” He ran around a fire hydrant, “Come back! Come back! Stop for the sake of the law!”
“I’m not a crook, I’m only biking, minding my own business. Go away, dammit!”
“Come back! Come back!”
The bike chain clattered to the ground. He felt bolts split apart, a bike wheel launched itself onto the road.
The bike gave a sharp swerve and hit a signpost. The middle-aged man flew through the air, sharply went up, and floated there for a while before slowly going down.
“I’m thinking… I’m thinking...”, the man murmured under his breath.
He dropped to the sidewalk, lifting the bike parts onto the sidewalk invisibly.
“You think that’s funny? Almost killing me, breaking my new bike!”, he pointed toward him. His face was grim.
Bob backed away, holding his fork with one hand, and trying to stop his other hand from twitching, and his entire body from nervously shaking.
“Stop this! Stop it! Come down slowly!”
“Can you explain why this?”, the man pointed to the bike, “Shut up! All for robbing 400 dollars from a stupid gas station! It’s not even that much!”
“Come down slowly! Please, please! I just need this. Please don’t give a fight. I’ll pay for the bike afterward. I’ll do anything. Please just come down!”, he shivered, his frail figure shrinking.
“I’m not going to the police station, dammit! I’m not dumb! They kicked me out of my place, evicted my place, raided my home, made everything so stupidly dangerous!”, the man strode toward him, “I’m gonna kill you first, then teach the entire squad a whole hecking lesson!”
A great shadowy object flew toward him and hit him with a truckload of force. As it collided into his chest, his skull, his entire body, he blacked out, the fork strangely loose in his hand.
He heard the sound of a car alarm…
He might’ve killed him, maybe not. Randy slowly backed away from the motionless body, horrified. A shocked look spread across his face. The car alarm continued blaring. He looked around, lifted the lamppost away from the man. The fork had stayed steady in the man’s hand overall.
Randy expected people to run out. The police holding him down, ready to shoot him dead.
But there was nobody. Everybody was sleeping. Doing whatever they were doing. He had a chance, he was alive. He could run now, or stay with the body in the snow.
“He deserved it!”, Randy shouted aloud, “He almost killed me himself! He was going to!... Oh god…”
He ran away into the night, wobbling, drunk on guilt, and deathly pale.
“Oh god...”, the words echoed through the neighborhood. Children waiting for Santa heard him. Taxi drivers watched him run. A man in his office who’d rested his head on the keyboard woke to the sound of sprinting.
“Oh god… Oh god… Oh god!...”
