Super Queue
I cannot move. I feel paralysed all over. My bones have frozen and my muscles have ceased to contract against one another. Rigid and stiff, even the fleshed cells that cycle life and gradually decay seem to have stopped as though I am dead. Oh my god, am I dead? Surely not. I can feel the ache of my brain as bounces synapsis along the nerves that feel alive but stop, as though they are being forced down. You know those videos of cats as they bound across gardens and attempt to enter the freshly cleaned glass door but smack head first into it; that’s how the electrical pulses feel.
“Ha ha, that’s funny.”
My brain thinks out loud, willing my lungs, lips and vocal chords to squeeze out some sort of guffaw. Except nothing. As part of my brain, the one without the blind panic, ruminates on a few Youtube videos of Cat Bloopers like a feline You’ve Be Framed, the will to react is strong and it is suffocated against the paralysis. The laughter inside of me that yearns to come out, fades and dissolves, slowly burning with intense fear and anguish. I feel the bubble of my stomach in worry but realise it means I am not completely stuck, am I?
I cannot move my eyes. They stay stuck, starring at one spot for a long time I wonder why they aren’t aching. I’m not blinking. I’m just stuck as though I’ve spaced out blankly gazing at the singular spot: a bold patch and the middle aged man before me. And I’d already been starring at that for half an hour before everything become, well, weird. Not even my goddam eye balls are moving and I worry (more so,) that if I ever get out of this pickle
I’m standing up, by the way. If I haven’t made that clear. I haven’t fallen over, succumbed to the old age of my creaky knees and landed awkwardly that my entire back as seized up. I haven’t been shot in a rather particular place like my neck and I’m now lying clambering for life. The dramatic flow of blood pouring out of a wound, clasping the hand of a loved one as I whisper “I can’t move, I can’t move,” over again in shock would make sense. This makes none. I am stood in a queue starring at that bald spot as though I am inquisitive of its nature or attract it. I’m stood in a queue to the bank, arms folded, toes in mid tap and I think I’m mid sigh. That would explain why my cheeks are still puffed out. Great, I’m paralysed and I look ridiculous.
There is a cheque in my hand that has scrawled hand writing. It’s from my Nan, the only relatives of this day and age to still send cheques despite the belligerent “everyone needs technology” adverts now filling up our advertising space. In front of the bald spot in front of me, (indeed, in front of the man who the bald spot belongs too,) there is a green and white poster of the same message. A patronising young women and an elderly, assumed computer illiterate, man laugh as though they’ve connected over digits. But my Nan still scrawls “Twenty Pounds Only” onto pieces of paper, sends them too me for my birthday and while I am now pushing thirty, it’s a tradition that I now cling to annoyingly in a bank.
Even more annoying? I am now literally stuck in a queue as though I am living the stereotypical British person’s wet dream. No thank you, I’d like this to stop now. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
There is movement. It takes me by surprise. So much so that my eyeballs roll. My eye balls roll around?! I don’t know exactly what is going on, maybe we’ve all been effected by drugs and they are wearing off. But there is something strolling around the room as though they haven’t the time in the world. There is a large smirk on their face as they pull silly grins at the nonchalant customers all blissfully unaware I assume, mainly as none have punched this dickhead in the face.
I say dickhead because I am now 99% sure that this scrawny git has done this too us. You here about those mutants? A generation of super humans with gifts so extraordinary that we’ve succumb to their spandex wearing antics and allow half of our cities to get blown up with their fights. All I wanted was to cash a check and this bristle blonde so blasé with his robbery that he doesn’t even have a mask comes swanning in. Yes. This is one of those “bad guys.” What I imagine, judging by the gauntness of his eyes and the bloodshot dilation of them, is that this drug addict wannabe has discovered his powers only days ago, knowing fully well that he can use them to rob a bank.
Except he hasn’t really thought this through. Because as he prats around like a drunken fart unwelcome at a party, he has forgotten that to get to the good stuff you need a key. And everyone who has one is on the wrong side of the bullet proof glass. See, if I could laugh, I would. The instant he realises and his face drops is such a Kodak moment that I want to frame it. Watching him pound against the door was facetious enough but it’s when he starts launch chairs and himself where the real comedic perfection starts. I can’t help myself. I snort.
Wait, I snort?
He hears it too. Confused and maybe with a sliver of panic rolling down his brown with the salty bead of sweat is too much for him to take. He looks worried around the room, thwarted by an uncontrollable lady and her unstoppable snort. I stay still. Well, stiller. As quick as it took for snort to cascade out of my nostrils, he enacts plan B: take all the money from the hands of people stupid enough to succumb to this moron’s power. Idiots like myself. His filthy paws clamber the notes folded in the hands of everybody waiting. His claws dive into handbags, bumbags and back pockets and as he makes his way down the line, he is getting closer. He gets to me. He looks at my cheque and realises how useless the scrawl is, he looks down to my handbag. Dirty bendy jittery fingers, scummy nails and a thumb start to unzip my bag.
“Hey.” I shout except I don’t.
“Stop.” I shout except I don’t.
I’m getting annoyed. The thought of the soiled man’s hands down my nice satin lining of my handbag incenses me. It’s boiling in my stomach that his greasy palms are clamouring over my precious things. I’ve got private things in here, man. I think and try to will it through my puffed out cheeks though the thought of this criminal pulling out a bullet shaped vibrator is a grand image. I think I’m angrier at the state of his teeth, his stained enamel as though he’d been eating shit just moments before are in my face and I can smell the crap addled breath. I cannot have this man this close to me. As I feel him pull my purse from within my bag, there is a rise in rage. I cannot stand it anymore.
“HEY!” I shout and I do, after I’ve completed the puff I was original making. Before I know it my arms have swung round and I’ve pushed him to the ground. The stunned pickpocket glances up at me, his mouth gapping open and shut. I’m perplexed myself starring at my hands as I can feel life come back to my cells again. It isn’t everyone, it is just me and him shimmering in this tableau. Two flakes descending in a snowglobe. I am free from his entrancement. Just me and him. Both breaking his spell. To test out my new fluid flexibility, I slam a heel into his crotch.
His howl of pain must’ve broken his concentration as mummers around me and people gasping as they realise a grubby criminal is cupping his balls in pain and I’m standing over him angrily. Not to mention the purses and money slew around him. Through the crowd a security guard runs and grabs him. In the man’s last words before hurried away were “What are you lady?”
I don’t know. I think, frozen in confusion.