Dave Eggers - You Shall Know Our Velocity

"No idea."

"How many guys inside? Don't look."

"Two."

"Who is it? Don't look."

Hand turned.

"One looks like the guy from the café."

"Which guy?"

"The guy with the jacket. The one who went in and -"

"Okay. Fuck!"

"This is bad."

– You fucking imbecile, Hand.

– I know. I know.

"They're definitely following us," he said.

They were. We were following one car and being followed by another. There were two men in the car behind us, and they were allowing about twelve feet between them and us. The car in front took half a dozen turns, and we took them with him, and the car behind followed. There was no mistake, no coincidence.

"Still there," Hand said.

"I know!"

"They're in it together," said Hand.

"Who?"

"All of them. They're taking us somewhere. To a dead end. We won't be able to back up."

"Shut the fuck up."

My stomach felt grabbed and compressed. I had a fleeting stupid sense of relief that our French resister hadn't decided to join us. Because the future now seemed set: at some point, in a narrow alley, the car in front of us would stop and the car behind would close in and we'd be trapped and killed and disappeared.

It had been many minutes now. Maybe twenty turns. The men behind, barely recognizable in the dark, made no gestures, gave no hints. This was business.

"I can't believe this is happening," Hand said. "Maybe it's not happening."

"Of course it is. We're the only three cars in this whole city. You see any other traffic?"

It was true. These two cars were here for us. Hand rolled up his windows and pushed the car's automatic doorlock, the resulting sound a gun being cocked.

"Take a left somewhere. Get away," Hand said.

"I know, fucker," I said.

There was nowhere to turn. For all the choices we seemed to have, or the car ahead had, there were no choices at all. Every side street was a dead end.

"Wait till the last second and then -"

"Shut up, Hand."

He grunted, and then was sticking his lower jaw out, rotating it like he was trying to get back into place. I'd never see him do that.

"Are you going to do it? I think we -"

"Let me think!" I said.

"Fuck it, man."

"No, fuck you! You're the stupid fuck who waved all the money in front of the guy."

This registered with Hand. He had no answer.

"I didn't say fuck you, I said fuck it ."

"Well fuck yourself anyway," I said.

My hands gripped and regripped the wheel. My knuckles were not white, but red. I checked the mirror; they were there. I couldn't decide it if it would be easier or harder to die with your closest friend. I wanted to die first, that much I knew -

There were other men on the street, walking in pairs and alone. Some pushing carts. I worried about running over their feet – we were that close. We passed a crack of an alley, oozing with mustard light, where two men were embracing, with others watching, twenty men, at least -

No, it was a fight. One with a knife to the other's throat -

"You see that?" I asked.

"Fuck yeah I saw it."

Everything was wrong all at once.

"Just keep going."

The car behind hadn't let up. There was no way to even slow down without them hitting us. But where were we being taken? The street opened up. Then narrowed again. I couldn't deal anymore. My heart was humming, shaking. I almost wanted to stop, give it up. I began wondering if I was ready.

"Fuck," Hand said. "I can't believe this. You know what, though – I have to say, this is a pretty glamorous way to die. I mean – But will they shoot us or what?"

"Shut the fuck up."

"I swear I'll take one of them with me. What do they want? Our money, or the car? Both, I guess. Fuck!"

"Maybe we should turn off."

"We'd be dead if Jack was driving."

"That's nice."

Maybe I was ready to go.

I was so tired.

Maybe I wanted to be crushed, too. To be ready you need to be tired, and you need to have seen a great deal, or what you consider to have been a great deal – we all have such different capacities, are able to absorb and sustain vastly different quantities of visions and pain – and at that moment I started thinking that I had seen enough, that in general I'd had my fill and that in terms of visual stimulation the week thus far had shown me enough and that I was sated. The rock-running in Senegal was enough, the kids and their bonjours – that alone would prepare me for the end; if I couldn't be thankful enough having been there I was sick and ungrateful, and I would not be ungrateful, not ever, I would always know the gifts given me, I would count them and keep them safe! I had had so much so I would be able to face the knife in the alley and accept it all, smiling serenely, thankful that I'd be taken while riding the very crest of everything. I had been on a plane! A tiny percentage of all those who'd ever lived would ever be on an airplane – and had seen Africa rushing at me like something alive and furious. I could be taken and eaten by these wet alleyways without protest.

The car behind seemed ready to ram us. It was so close we could hear its engine roaring over ours.

Suddenly Hand was yelling, almost crying.

"I hate this. [Hitting side window] I hate this! I feel closed in! I hate having no options!"

The turns were increasing.

– Jack I need -

–

"I hate being followed like this! I fucking hate it." Hand was hitting the dash now.

"Easy," I said.

"Fuck you, easy!"

– Jack.

"We could stop and get out and just run for it," I said.

Hand mulled this.

"Okay," he said, calming. "That's an option. I like that. We could always just bang on the door to some house and get help."

"Right."

"How close are they now?"

"Still right behind us." I looked into their faces, both with mustaches, both expressionless. I turned quickly back. This was very real. This was our lives, the whole of our relatively straight-forward lives, concluding savagely on this bizarre note, someone splicing onto our happy safe Wisconsin lives the wrong, bloody ending. This is Hand's fault. How? I don't know. You'll fight together. We'll be led into some pitchblack alley, some warehouse. We'll be stripped, robbed, beaten, flayed – You will disappear. You're not afraid. I know. Why? You used to fear death so tangibly. When you were Robotman you would wait till dawn to ensure no one took you while you were asleep. You cried during the astronomy unit when Mr. Geoghan talked about how brief our lives were comparatively, how brief was all mankind. I know. I couldn't hear it. When they talked about the imminent death of our sun, I lost it. And remember what he said, the first day of class? I do.

"Will."

He said: 'The only infallible truth of our lives is that everything we love in life will be taken from us.' He had just lost his wife. That was it. It was. He had lost his wife and came to class each day in a sweatsuit, royal blue with white stripes. He was a marathoner.

"Will."

I remember. I remember it being somehow soothing.

"Will, motherfucker."

"What? What?"

We had to slow past a group of men, and one pounded the car.

"I hate this shit! The not knowing! Why the fuck are they banging?"

There were a lot of butchers for some reason, men in white bloody aprons, pushing tin carts, knives and cleavers hanging from the cart's handle.

"This just makes no sense," Hand said.

"I know."

"The fact that we're not already dead is the most totally illogical thing. We should have been dead by now."

"If there was any sense to anything, we wouldn't be here at all. We have to just wait."