The old man by John Slimm (ebook reader with built in dictionary .txt) 📖

I get out of my car and open the back door to retrieve my laptop. There’s no
point in carrying in my coat too, because I think it will be warm tomorrow.
Might as well leave it in there in case it gets cold. As I shut the back door,
I notice someone standing in front of my apartment door. He’s not facing toward
the door, nor is he facing toward me. From my angle, I can see that he’s an older
man, with thin white hair and a light peppered beard. There’s nothing remarkable
about him aside from the fact that he’s between me and my front door. I’m going
to have to approach him.

Strafing sideways, keeping my eyes on him without trying to attract his
attention, I can see that his head is bowed down. He’s sort of staring down at
something, but he doesn’t appear to be focusing on anything. There’s a sound
coming from him that is familiar to me.

I back away and pull my cell phone out of my pocket. My hand shaking, I dial
for the police and tell the woman on the other end that there’s someone in
front of my apartment who is scaring the shit out of me. I tell her I don’t know
whether I’m in danger, but just to send the nearest cop to my location. She
tells me not to approach the man and to remain calm.

Almost immediately, I see bright red and blue lights flashing out of the corner
of my eye. The cop pulls around the corner and parks right next to where I’m
standing. He’s a young guy, pretty thin, but he’s got a gun so I guess he’s
capable of handing the situation. He sees me on the phone and asks me if I was
the caller. I tell him yes and point to the old sucking man in front of my
apartment.

The cop does exactly what I did, strafing to his left, but doing it with louder
steps and an attempt to get the old man’s attention. But the old man doesn’t
even react. He’s still sort of looking down at that orange. The cop asks the
man calmly if he’s okay, but he gets no reaction. I see his hand hover just
above the butt of his gun. The cop doesn’t have to say it, but he tells me to
stay back. I have no problem with this because I want nothing to do with the
situation. I just want to get into my apartment so I can make some pasta and
watch my Netflix movies that were supposed to come in today.

He tells the old man to look up, and when nothing happens, he tells him to step
away from the apartment. He’s pretty calm about everything, but my heart is
racing. The old man is still making that god damned noise, and hasn’t taken a
breath. Part of me thinks he’s an alien, and the other part thinks this is all
some kind of joke. I haven’t been around many crazy people, so maybe this is
what they do. But I want to know why he’s in front of my apartment. I don’t
know anyone here. I don’t talk to my neighbors, and I keep quiet, so they
wouldn’t have any reason to mess with me.

And I want to know what was with the orange. I mean, when I drop an orange,
I pick it up, dust it off, and take apart the sections and eat it. I can’t
afford to throw it away or just let it sit on the dirt like this guy so ants can eat it.

The cop says something into his radio on his shoulder that I miss, but it makes
me jump. I guess he’s calling for backup. The old man doesn’t seem threatening,
but maybe the cop thinks he might have a bomb strapped to his chest. He tells
the old man to put his hands on his head and get down to his knees. I’ve seen
this in movies, so I know he’s going to put handcuffs on him and take him down
to the station. But damn it, the old man isn’t even looking up. Absolutely
nothing is changing about him or what he’s doing.

I want to say something, but the cop knows how to handle these kinds of
situations. That’s what they’re trained to do. This guy has probably dealt with
plenty of crazies, but maybe he’s never dealt with someone like the old man.
Even schizophrenics react, I think. The only knowledge I have of these kinds
of things are vague memories from psychology classes and movies, so maybe I’m
wrong.

The cop is moving toward the man, and he’s got his baton in his hand. Fuck,
this might get violent. I like seeing this stuff in TV shows, but I never
wanted to see an old man get the shit beat out of him. But that noise coming
from him has got to stop. A shiver goes down my spine, and the cop probably
feels the same thing. He warns the old man one last time, but there is no fucking
reaction at all.

He’s an arm’s length away from the old man, and he’s got his baton against his
wrist. He’s not going to use it to hit the man, just to help push him down. That
might not hurt. Then with a clean, swift move, he brings the baton down between
the old man’s shoulder and his neck, probably some kind of pressure point thing.
This move would have easily taken me down, rendering me completely helpless.
But it does nothing to the old man. The fabric of his brown coat doesn’t even
move. The cop backs away instantly, probably pissing his pants. I know that has
never happened to him.

This time he swings the baton at the man. He probably wants to just knock the
guy out and fucking end that noise. Neither of us care that the man is old. We
just want this situation to end. The baton hits the old man’s temple, but
bounces off wildly, snapping the cop’s arm. The stick goes flying through the
air and into a bush. The cop backs away, screaming in pain as his arm dangles.
He yells out all kinds of profanity, and then goes for his gun. He has trouble
getting it because he has to reach across his waist and unlatch it.

I’m to invested now to leave, but holy shit it’s a fucking gun. I’ve fired a gun
or two before, but it was at a tree and my dad was making sure I didn’t point
it at anything but a tree. I’ve never seen a gun pointed at a human being
before. But if the baton bounced off the man like that, then the same thing was
probably going to happen with a bullet. That’s how that shit works with Superman
and his villains. Bullets always bounce off of them.

The cop is screaming at the old man now, telling him to get down before he
fucking shoots him. This is probably against the law, but come on, nobody is
trained for this kind of shit. If our roles were reversed, I’d be pointing the
gun at the old man too. I’d probably have pulled the trigger by now. Or maybe I
wouldn’t because it might ricochet into my stomach or my knee.

He pulls the trigger. I know this not because I saw him do it, but because I
know what a gunshot sounds like. It’s sort of like on TV, but it’s different.
Either time has stopped, or none of us are moving. The old man isn’t making that
noise anymore, but he’s still in the same position, staring down at that orange.
That’s when it hits me. I know what the cop needs to do now.

I say out loud to kick the orange away. The cop still has his gun pointed at
the old man, but he turns to look at me, like what the fuck am I talking about.
He looks down at the orange, probably noticing it for the first time and
realizing it has some significance in the situation. He takes a slight step
forward and kicks it away. It rolls across the sidewalk and into a bush.

The old man looks up. His mouth is puckered, still making that sucking motion,
and it reminds me of an anteater. He’s staring right at the cop now. I pity the
cop. I want to apologize for calling instead of just walking past the old man
into my apartment and pretending nothing happened. He might have left on his own
accord a few hours later, and I’d leave my apartment tomorrow and not see him
ever again. It would be a weird story to tell my friends, sort of like this one
time when I was walking to school and I saw this car stopped in front of a stop
sign. Both the man and woman inside were asleep, so I cautiously approached it,
knocked on the window, and asked if everything was okay. The guy woke up, and
I was glad he wasn’t dead, said he was fine, and drove off. It was pretty weird,
but my new story would have been more interesting.

But now I’m not sure if I ever want to think about this again, let alone talk
about it.

I’m terrified, and I know that cop is too. An old bulletproof man is staring at
him, right into his eyes. He pulls the trigger again, the gun aimed right at
the old man’s chest. Maybe he thought like I did that the orange was creating a
force field around him, and it was gone now. But it’s not. I don’t see blood
spray anywhere, or even the slightest reaction from the old man.

The cop puts the gun to the old man’s forehead and unloads the entire clip. The
bullets aren’t ricocheting anywhere, nor is the old man’s head exploding. But
something is happening. The gun is starting to glow red. It burns the cop’s
hand and he drops the gun. An orange aura stars to spot around the old man,
and his mouth opens as wide as a human mouth can.

His head tilts back and he looks straight up at the sky. And I mean straight.
His head snaps back so fast that I hear his neck break, but the old man doesn’t
fall down or die. The cop backs away, and so do I. I look up and see a hole
form in the sky. It’s black, and my best guess is that it’s a worm hole. The man
is completely engulfed in his orange aura. It’s like fire, but it doesn’t spit
out like fire. The aura stretches up toward the sky, very thinly at first, but
then it becomes a pillar as wide as the