What the hell was it?
With what seemed like a final smirk, the creature bolted from its stationary position, flying with such speed that it was gone from my sight before I’d even had time to register its movement. The only clue that it had been there at all was the pinkish trail left in its wake, beckoning me to follow.
I ran after it, my flip-flops clapping against the stone steps in a metronome rhythm. The trail snaked from side to side, and in a few places looped around in a circle, as if the fly had spun back around to make sure I still followed.
Whatever it was, it was fast. I ran as quickly as my legs could manage, but I still couldn’t seem to catch up, even though the winding path made it look like the creature was meandering its way up the steps rather than racing me to the top.
I pumped my arms harder, using them to propel myself forward. In the distance, I caught sight of the dragonfly’s elongated green body as it zipped from side to side on the steps, but it disappeared again in a deft burst of speed.
Come on. I urged my feet to keep moving. It circled back in my direction, a pinkish figure eight trailing behind it, and just when I thought I might catch up to it, the plastic bolt between my toes ripped free from the sole of my flip-flop and I tumbled forward, knocking my knee on the edge of a step.
Man, it hurt. It really, really hurt. So much so that stars burst behind my eyes, white and hot with everything my nerve endings could deliver.
Blood gushed from the open wound on my knee. I was suddenly dizzy from it, feeling for a moment like I might faint.
Then it hit me—it hurt.
I could actually feel real honest-to-God pain in my knee. I hadn’t felt pain since arriving on the stairs—not when I tried to pull the flower up from the ground, not when I slammed my hands against the steps, not even when I ran as hard as I could. I should have felt something all those other times, but I didn’t. So what changed? Why was I suddenly feeling things again?
I ran a thumb across my knee, smearing blood on my clean skin. A sharp jab of pain shot up my leg when I poked at the cut. It was such a relief that I started to laugh. I could feel again. I was bleeding! It was like I was alive again.
Up ahead, the dragonfly had disappeared from view and its pink path began to fade into the sky. I’d have to hurry if I didn’t want to lose the trail.
I leaned on the step in front for support as I stood, ready to run, but stopped short. Something was different. The step felt wrong, like it had changed. Not a major change—it wasn’t like it had suddenly turned from stone to carpet or anything—but it was definitely different than it had been a moment before.
I ran my hand over the top a few times to be sure, then crawled forward a few more steps to check those as well. Sure enough, it was the same on all of them. The center of every step was worn down and grooved, the way staircases leading up to old buildings are worn down from all the feet constantly hitting them and wearing away at the stone. It was a subtle change, but an important one. Because it meant that someone was here before me. And not just someone—someones. There would’ve had to be hundreds, maybe even thousands of feet hitting the steps to wear them down like this. So where did everybody go?
I stood up to look around, or as around as you can look when you aren’t able to move your head or body backwards.
Nothing looked any different beyond the hint of the pink trail left behind by the dragonfly. The sky was still clear, the air was still quiet and motionless. A few tiny flakes of snow drifted down from invisible clouds, but otherwise there was no movement beyond the rising and falling of my own chest. Where was everyone? Did they all poof and disappear?
“Hello?” I called, my voice sticking to the sides of my throat from lack of use. “Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me? Hello!”
My voice came back to me in an echo, reverberating off the stone steps like I was standing inside an empty canyon. For a moment I stood there, remembering earlier when the snow started to fall after I yelled at the sky. Someone listened to me then, so where were they now? Why wasn’t anyone helping me?
Even stranger than where everybody went was how they managed to get to that point on the stairs. How was it that this part of the stairs was worn down, but the part I started on was perfectly smooth and flat? It would make more sense for the beginning part of the steps to be worn down because that’s the place where everyone had to start. Right?
But the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t be sure that I started at the bottom of the staircase. I couldn’t turn around to look behind me, so there was no way for me to know whether or not I started at the beginning. I just assumed it was the beginning, because, well, that’s how stairs usually work. But what if I appeared somewhere in the middle of the staircase? Given everything that had happened, it wasn’t farfetched to think I might have poofed into the center of the stairs when the car hit me, which was disconcerting. How big was this thing?
I crouched down on the step again, rocking on my heels while I tried to work it out in my head. My fingers worked around my temples the way they sometimes did when I tried to squeeze an answer out of my brain in class. What if when we died we all started at a different place on the stairs? What if there was no beginning, or the beginning was different for all of us? It wasn’t logical, but then again nothing about the stairs seemed logical.