M Sellars - The End Of Desire

I kept my eyes focused on Annalise as I covered the half block to North Rampart. She was already out into the middle of the street dodging traffic as I ran off the curb. The sound of a blaring horn pierced my ears then mixed with the squeal of tires against pavement. I jerked my head in the direction of the noise and saw the oncoming vehicles. It felt as though my heart seized in my chest, and I was frozen with fear. I don’t know how, but I still managed to jump forward. A compact car skidded at an angle, and I felt a whoosh of air at my back. I elected not to look because I didn’t want to see how close I had just come to being road kill.

Another horn blared, and yet another. Rubber squealed on asphalt, and a truck slid to a halt in front of me, stopping only inches away and to my left. I jerked to the side and started to go around it when a loud crash met my ears. I caught a flash of the truck lurching forward out of the corner of my eye and jumped back instead. I felt myself thump against the first car that had barely missed me and watched as the truck was pushed several feet by the vehicle that had just rear-ended it, finally halting exactly where I would have been had I continued around it. I slid sideways between the truck in front of me and the compact car at my back then shot forward hooking around the end of the pileup I had just caused. I should have been scared out of my wits, but at this point I actually found myself feeling like a confused squirrel on his way across any given street.

Ahead of me, Annalise was dealing with her own self-inflicted obstacle course. I watched as she ran directly into the side of a station wagon that had only a split second before screeched to a halt in front of her. She bounced against the front quarter panel, stumbled, then regained her footing and continued on. As she swivel-hipped around the front end of the vehicle, she glanced back at me for a split second then tore off across the asphalt.

I launched myself into the mess once again, running a serpentine course between vehicles that had ended up stopped at oblique angles. Traffic was coming to a halt quickly; however, there were still a few cars in motion, and we both had to dodge them as well. Horns were still honking, some at us, some at other cars as confusion ran rampant through the mid-afternoon drivers. Some of those who had been directly involved in the accidents were out on the street screaming at us as we darted past them.

If I hadn’t been smack in the middle of this insanity myself, I’m sure I would have been looking around for the movie cameras. It was simply that surreal.

The various obstructions had caused our pace to slow somewhat, but it didn’t allow either of us to actually catch our breath. I had managed to close in by maybe a pair of steps at the most, so Annalise was still well ahead of me when she hit the curb on the opposite side of North Rampart. Our trajectories had been thrown off with all the zigzagging, and she now veered to the left. Anticipating her move, I barreled across trying to angle myself so that I could continue down the cross street where I assumed she was heading.

Though it still appeared to me that she was holding her side, she seemed to have gained a second wind. She sprinted across the mouth of Saint Louis Street, but instead of turning down it as I expected her to do, she continued along the sidewalk parallel to North Rampart. Because of my angle and momentum, I overshot the sidewalk and had to double back a few paces, instantly losing any gain I had picked up. Making the quick turn and whipping back around the corner of the building, I leaped across the curb and fell in behind her, still several paces to the rear.

My heart was racing so fast it felt like a single drawn-out thump inside my chest. I was wheezing air in and out of my tortured lungs as fast as I possibly could, but the oxygen apparently still wasn’t making it to my brain because the lightheadedness I had felt a moment before was now becoming dizziness.

Over the sound of the blood rushing in my ears, I thought I heard music trilling nearby. Some portion of my tipsy brain still managed to recognize the tune and forwarded a message to the appropriate quadrant telling me that it was my cell phone. I ignored this new bit of information and kept running. I couldn’t tell what Annalise was going to do next because she was merely following a straight line at the fastest pace she could muster. I tried to stay focused on her and anticipate her moves, but she had fooled me once already, so I wasn’t sure how confident I was in making another guess. The problem was that I think she was well aware of her edge because at the last minute she feinted left then veered suddenly right onto Toulouse.

However, at the same instant she was making the turn, a man was coming around the corner from the opposite direction. She slammed headlong into him, causing him to stumble back against the wall of the building as she tripped and rolled to the ground. I tried to yell to the man to hold her there, but I couldn’t catch enough breath to form the words.

He was already helping her scramble up to her feet a second later when I made it to them. I reached out to grab her, and she quickly twisted away, once again screaming “RAPE” as loud as she could manage while doing so.

The man immediately grabbed my arm and shouted, “HEY!”

I tried to wrench away from him, but he had his fist twisted into the cloth of my jacket. Annalise didn’t wait around to see what was about to ensue; she immediately turned and bolted down the street into the French Quarter.

I pulled hard, trying to break free of the man, but he appeared to be dead set on protecting her from me, shouting once again, “HEY! Whaddaya think you’re doin’?!” Then, with a sudden look of surprise in his face he added, “GAWD!”

What the final exclamation was all about I didn’t know, but I decided his apparent shock might work to my advantage. I seized on the fact that he was pulling against me and that I could use the opposing force as additional leverage. Yanking back, I then suddenly pitched forward and launched myself into him. Taken completely by surprise, he slammed backwards against the wall. He was by no means incapacitated, but it jarred him enough that I was able to twist and pull free of his grasp. I started away before he could make another grab for me, but I still sucked in a quick breath and wheezed it back out at him as, “Cops…Call cops…”

Huffing hard, I ran in the direction Annalise had taken, but by now she was completely out of sight. Fortunately, I didn’t hear any footsteps behind me, so when I reached the first cross street, I slowed before glancing first left then right, but I saw no sign of her. I thought about flipping a mental coin and heading one direction or the other, but something didn’t feel right about the tactic. Instead, I picked up my pace and decided to jog farther along Toulouse, heading deeper into The Quarter.

Going ahead and crossing Burgundy Street, I entered the second block. It actually made sense that she would have continued along this path as it would afford the easiest way to disappear. The sidewalks were littered with debris that had been removed from hurricane-damaged buildings. There were even several refrigerators and other appliances blocking the walkways, many of them inscribed in indelible marker with what appeared to be derogatory statements about FEMA and the executive branch of the federal government. With delivery trucks and other vehicles on the road as well, it made for a maze in which hiding places were beyond plentiful.

If the inanimate objects weren’t enough, the farther in I traveled, the more activity I encountered. There were people going about their daily routines, which now included a large amount of rehab. The majority of them were intent on their jobs hauling trash out of buildings, and paid me little to no attention, although I did get an odd glance or two. I guess they weren’t used to seeing people jog through The Quarter.