He's smoking his last cigarette, standing on the Stone Arch Bridge in downtown Minneapolis. He is walking north, toward Dinkytown. The old pea green army coat doesn't provide as much warmth as he needs to keep warm, and he shivers slightly as a cold breeze snakes up his back. His worn out boots swing passed each other in an old, sad dance.

He had been fired from his job that morning and had been smoking and drinking beer all day long. His eyes are watery and unclear. His mind is a jumble of anger, apathy, and despair. The despair lodges like a woodtick in his heart, a small, unnoticeable creature that slowly sucks the oil from his rusty motor. The rage bubbles up and he punches the metal railing, bruising his middle knuckle and causing a sharp pain to shoot up his arm. That hurts, he thinks bluntly. Fucking stupid railing.

He looks down into the dark water and thinks about jumping in, realizing how cliche that is. Probably wouldn't die anyway, probably just get soaked and frozen, catch hypothermia, rack up some hospital bills. His eyelids feel like anvils as he stumbles off the bridge onto a brightly lit street. Some well-dressed people are walking in clusters here and there, emerging from nearby bars, movie theaters, and offices. He feels a certain comfort being in the midst of people that seemed to have it all together. Not like me, not a loser who can't even hack a simple warehouse job for more then two weeks. They look at me and see the failure I am. It's written all over my face.

Fuck it, I just can't do this anymore.

He turns down a dark alley and looks for the right one. When he finds it, he takes off his stocking cap and wraps his hand in it. The car alarm bursts into life, shrieking a pissed off melody into the night air, as he smashes his fist through the rear passenger window of the car. The effort hurts his injured hand, and he throws the glass shard encrusted cap into the backseat of the car. Then he realizes that he can't get the doors unlocked from the back door. Shit.

He's at the coffee shop typing on the borrowed laptop, sipping a large dark roast and sniffling. His sinuses have been congested for a few days and he's worried he might be coming down with a virus or a cold. He has to blow his nose every ten minutes or so.

The coffee is making him jittery now. He is typing an email to a friend. He hopes she doesn't read it right away. It is a very personal email and he feels that as soon as he sends it, it will be too hot to touch. It needs time to cool down. His cell phone rings but he doesn't answer it.

A beautiful woman in a long red coat walks in through the glass door, a bell tinkling. He is captivated by her sharp features. A moment later a tall man in a leather jacket enters. The beautiful woman and the tall man exchange greetings and hugs. He wonders if they are a couple or friends. He wonders what the difference is.

His coffee and email are almost done. He finishes them both up with an artistic flourish and grabs his coat. Outside in the dark night he turns up his collar and hunches over a little to stride back to his apartment. He is ready to lay down for awhile.

He feels a presence. He moves his head a little to try to catch sight of anything behind him with his peripheral vision, and spots a figure trailing him. He doesn't care, just keeps on walking. The night is damp on his cheeks, but his internal temperature rises as he walks and all surface moisture evaporates.

All of a sudden he finds himself tripping over a bump in the sidewalk. His head is falling down, down, and smack! He feels a crack in his skull as his face kisses the pavement. Holy shit, he thinks, this could be bad.

He reaches up to feel his forehead and encounters a warm wetness on the sidewalk. His blood, the blood of his head. His heart begins to race and he starts to shiver in fear. Then a hand grabs him by the back of the neck. He calls out in alarm.

She's strolling down the black street in tan shoes that she's always thought were a little too heavy for her feet. The streetlights that line Washington Avenue cast yellow light haphazardly out into the wet autumn air. Downtown Minneapolis smells like car exhaust and fried foods, popcorn and gasoline. She turns and walks up a street to her regular bus stop in order to catch the bus that goes down University every ten minutes or so. It is dark out and she is feeling nervous. She worked late tonight, trying to get part of a project done so that she wouldn't have to go over it all again tomorrow. She is tired of that part of the project.

Being a small female, she is inconspicuous to most people who pass by. But she thinks of the type of men who lurk in the shadows and prey on the small and defenseless. She doesn't usually worry, but every now and then she catches herself in the mirror and senses what could happen.

She wishes she had some pepper spray in her pocket. It makes sense to have some sort of protection, she thinks. Not a characteristic thought for her, but the dark coldness of the urban night feels tinged with danger for some reason. She stands, hunched into herself at the bus stop, trying to exude an empty feeling, trying to shapeshift into a blob with no distinguishable sexual characteristics.

The bus whizzes by without stopping, splashing a little dirty slush onto her newly laundered pants.

What the fuck was that, she thinks in disbelief. The disbelief slowly turns into a smoldering rage at the world. Why the fuck didn't the bus stop for me? Her thoughts go around and around in circles.

She starts to walk home, over the bridge that spans the Mississippi River. She was really counting on getting into that warm bus to help shake her crazy feelings of personal danger, but now her senses are on heightened alert and she is simply afraid, too tired to keep it together. Every noise is a maniac in the bushes ready to pounce. Her fear is slightly ambivalent now, as it all seems like a dream.