Before You Give Up: Listening for the other voice
Posted: Saturday, May 14, 2011
by Steve Radford
Surrounded by thugs in the middle of a large abandoned warehouse, every cell in my body cried out to give up. Why fight? Twenty killers, many with arms bigger than my legs, all focused on me and excited about the prospects of beating me to death. Each was armed with a pipe, knife or bat. Not that they needed them. Any one of them could’ve done the job unarmed. I whispered to myself, ‘well let’s get it over with’.
But it was such an odd thought that I slipped my right hand into my pants pocket. A few of the gang saw my movement and tensed, maybe expecting a gun. I felt a small item at the bottom of my pocket and pulled it out to see that it was a small safety pin. The killers swore and relaxed and I was about to drop it to the floor when the voice returned to say “open it and attack”.
My next thought was ‘so these are the tricks a mind plays just before you die’ but that thought was interrupted again with a firmer “attack now”! I was familiar with that voice or impression or whatever it was. I had heard it many times before and ignored it every time. “Don’t go there”. “Don’t do that”. “Call that person”. “Leave this place”. “Speak to that stranger”. It seemed like that voice always asked me to do something that was impossible or at best, uncomfortable.
But now I had come to the place where I had nothing more to lose. So in that moment, I made a decision. I took the safety pin and opened it. Pinching it between my thumb and right finger, I searched for the smallest of the men surrounding me and lunged at him, thrusting the point of that little pin at his chest.
“What the…?” after a startled moment, he realized what I had in my hand and started laughing. Then the whole mob joined him in a chorus of laughter and profanity. The voice again… “Attack!” I swung my arm from right to left in a sweeping motion at the eye level of three thug’s, causing them to lean back to avoid an annoying scratch from my safety pin. No longer laughing, they moved in. Reversing the motion, I slung my arm in a backward sweep. To my surprise and theirs, I sliced three faces, each man reaching to cover the cuts.
I looked at my little weapon. I wasn’t holding a pin anymore but rather a razor sharp knife. Three thugs were crouched and covering their bleeding faces. Four more started to rush me from behind. Keeping the knife at shoulder height, I began to flail wildly from side to side. Two more killers went down. Somehow I was now wielding a large sword.
Gripping the sword in both hands I focused on a particularly menacing man with a steel pipe. He swung it hard at me and met my sword in a loud clash of metal. The sword won as the pipe was sheered off an inch above the man’s hand. Oddly, he just stopped and stared at the remaining piece of pipe he was holding. Expecting the next wave of attackers, I spun around.
But no one was there. I looked to the left where the three had been clutching their wounded faces… gone. Looking back to the thug with the pipe, he had vanished. Now only a skinny kid holding a small piece of pipe remained. He stared at me with a defiant look. “This isn’t over”. He dropped the pipe to the concrete floor and it echoed for several seconds as he hurried out the door.
Dropping to my knees exhausted in the middle of the warehouse, I whispered. “Thank you. I should have listened to you sooner. I’m sorry.” Then as I struggled to my feet, I folded the pin back into the safety position and returned it to my pocket.
Standing there on the balcony of my apartment, questions flashed through my mind like shooting stars in the night sky. What happened to the gang? How could they have been so menacing one minute and gone the next? Who told me to attack? Did he know my safety pin would become a sword? That voice was so familiar…
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Very interesting. I'm not quite sure, though. Thanks for something different on SearchWarp.Thanks for reading and commenting Jack. Different is good. I like different.
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