Escape to Another Reality

One of the detectives removed my handcuffs. He ordered me to sit down, indicating a wood bench jammed between the two walls. I remember bending over tying my shoe laces tighter and tighter before triple knotting them. I was not planning to escape—my mind only obsessing at the idea of going to prison. Cold sweat soaked my body as something beyond any logic of my own compelled me to run. Totally out of my mind, I leaped from the room and raced down the lighted corridor bowling over a detective in my way. Adrenalin coursing through my body, I flew up the steps to the main floor tearing past the sergeant at the main desk who shouted STOP as I fled by. Too late, I was already “all in”, live or die. At the precinct entrance I leaped beyond the steps to the sidewalk, pulling free of my heavy coat while running in full freaked-out stride over the rain-soaked sidewalk. I heard gun shots and police shouting “Halt” simultaneously. I fled around the corner, a single thought shouting in my mind, “Get out of the line of fire!” I fled around another corner to behold the longest city block in the world, with apartment buildings on both sides. It was the wrong choice, a horrible heart-stopping mistake. Suddenly, everything morphed surreal. Buildings became skyscrapers with no definitions, people were taller, cars longer and the street I was running on narrowed all the way to the horizon. No way to get out of the line of fire—no choice left but to duck into the first building on the corner. I yanked open the outside door lunging into a small vestibule with a locked interior door. On the wall beside the door was a brass column of nameplates with doorbells beside them. The locked door would not open unless one of the tenants buzzed me in. I ran my hand down the column of bells. I looked back through the glass windows in the outside door to see cops in the street with guns drawn, looking uncertainly around. I was afraid they would see me and fill the vestibule with bullets. When the inside door buzzed, it sounded like an explosion. At that moment, I fully entered an altered state of consciousness. I was not escaping but watching my body escape, something, or someone else in control. When I shoved the inside door open, I lunged full speed toward the steps at the end of the lobby. It was like observing someone who had lived in the building for years and knew everything about it. I did not have to think about the advantages of taking the steps to the basement instead of to the roof. There was no need to choose. It was beyond evident that the steps to the basement had all the advantages. Waiting for the elevator was never an option, with the police ten yards behind me. The basement was a vast storage area, with metal slatted sheds containing bicycles, baby carriages, furniture, tricycles—the sheds were so filled with belongings that the walkways through the basement were also obstructed with furniture, bed frames, and toys. I scrambled through the congested storage area as though I knew there was an exit on the far side of this immense basement, and there was. Going through the fire door at the far end and up one flight of steps put me in the lobby of the adjacent apartment building. Outside, sirens were blaring, deafening—people were gathering on the rain-swept streets even though bullhorns were commanding, “GET OFF THE STEETS! THERE’S A FUGITIVE ON THE LOOSE! Everything was now appearing like a grotesque dream scape. People were abnormally tall, cars bigger, longer, buildings rising to the sky, while I appeared tiny, ant-like as I stepped out of the lobby into the rain. I knew I was hallucinating, hoping it was from the adrenaline flooding my body and not the fleeting images of a man already shot dead. I started walking as fast and calmly as I could through the curious bystanders, acutely aware that I was conspicuous, my clothes drenched and my hair hanging like a wet mop. Two police cars, sirens screaming, raced past the crowd. Suddenly, a man in a uniform, not a cop, maybe a bus-driver, possessed by a vision of heroism, grabbed me, shouting, “This is the guy! I got the guy!” Grabbing me in a bear hug, while leaving my arms free was beyond stupid. I was running for my life, terrified, with enough adrenalin coursing through my body to tear his head from his shoulders. He must have sensed that because when I grabbed his head he fainted like a wet rag to the ground. I hope he fainted. I started running again. I turned the next corner and fled over the driveway of an orange brick housing complex into a vast central quadrangle containing a long row of tenant garages. Still hallucinating, the orange buildings glowed and the metal garage doors looked like separate waterfalls. Abutting the walls of the surrounding buildings were these double storm doors over what I assumed were basements. Police sirens were filling the air outside the apartment complex as I ran to the nearest set of storm doors. I yanked them open, jumping down into the darkness and closing them over me. I was crouched down on the steps that led to a door with a small window letting faint light through. The door was locked, blocking access to the actual cellar. Suddenly, a German Shepherd appeared at the window silently observing me, as though every day of his confined life he had looked out at a stranger cowering on the steps. “WHY ISN’T HE BARKING? ISN’T THAT HIS STUPID JOB? YEAH, HE’S STUPID—NO WAY AS STUPID AS ME, HIDING LIKE A RAT—HUNTED—IDIOT—ESCAPING ON FOOT—TO WHERE? ANY F***ING WHERE! I CAN’T HANDLE PRISON—FOR WHAT, TWO YEARS, MAYBE THREE—NOW WHAT???I’M F***ED! THE COPS ARE OUT FOR BLOOD—SHOOTING AT ME BEFORE SHOUTING HALT! I DON’T WANT TO DIE!