Analysis Paralysis

“Sort it out,” they said.
“We leave you two to sort it out.”
But it’s not like we were even. He wouldn’t let it be even. Dammit. They are supposed to be my arbitrators, brokering fairness and enforcing equality where it doesn’t yet exist naturally. My chance to get out of the hallway quietly left when they did.

And here he comes. The tears he had faked dried up almost as soon as our new arrangement became clear.

I need to escape. But at this point in the encounter the walls move in and the ground closes up on the ceiling. I can’t squeeze by or wiggle out of the spot. I’m rooted to the ground even as it prepares to fall out below me. I just know what’s going to happen. Except it’s useless. I have a refined sensibility for danger but my reaction matrix is a spore so the Seer in me is useless. They call this analysis paralysis.

The pressure is building even more as he approaches and everything is magnified. The people everywhere are stopping what they’re doing to stare right at me. I can hear it. The sounds of feet stopping to watch enhance the steadily building momentum as it pounds in my ears second by second. I can hear the cracks in my neck turning to follow him approaching my right side. Chubby fingers curl up and launch at my face. I feel the skin of my right cheek scrunching up in my eye socket only for a moment before I’m out cold.

The bell brings me back from the blackout minutes later. I push myself up to stand. An art junkie is painting me. Great. It couldn’t much worse. As though the universe were listening to my every thought though, I fell. Tripped actually, over my own pants which were down around my ankles. The universe was listening alright. And laughing. He had pants’d me while I was down. That is real neat. I’ll be out sick for a few days…