adversary

I enter the classroom, and he is there: my nemesis waiting in my peripheral as I sit near the back. But it doesn't matter where I sit; good old Nick finds a way. He has helpers who zip-tie my backpack to my desk, and I struggle to untie it as they cackle, faces red like demons. I move to a desk close to the teacher, poker face, not wanting to give them satisfaction. It doesn't matter; they move behind me. The class is doing an experiment: designing microchips we place inside syringes we inject into slabs of meat. While I work, I feel the pinch of a needle in the back of my neck. I turn and grab a syringe from Nick's hand, break it in two, and shout, Stop it! The teacher approaches, and I hand her the broken needle and rub my neck worried about infection, to be infected by him. Nick seems angry that his fun was spoiled. Class dismissed. I walk alone between buildings, across the dusk-dyed campus, hiding in shadows, and just when I let down my guard: a tap on the shoulder. Nick's grinning sidekick holds a beeping receiver. They're tracking me! The microchip! I snatch the receiver and smash it against the bricks and struggle to escape their clawing hands. Nick is closest, so I grab him, righteous anger boiling over, fueling a hatred I thought myself above as I squeeze his neck and slam his laughing skull against a brick wall. But they're still grabbing, ripping my shirt. I yell, panic flooding. Help, help! Call the police! A group of boys holding a Bible study at a nearby picnic table continue praying in the lengthening shadows. That evening, the automatic doors open to an arctic A/C breeze as I limp into the grocery store on a mission, machete hanging from my hand. I see Nick working a checkout line and, without hesitation, I lunge and swing at his neck until he falls, tennis shoes squeaking, slipping in his own blood. Screaming clueless customers flee, and I chop and chop until nerves are visible, until bone is visible, until the head separates and rolls sideways and blood pools under it like a crimson shadow, and I see my face in the puddle, a face full of rage and also pleasure. But the pleasure melts into a heavy sense of loss. And, touching my neck, I am shocked to find my own blood staining my fingertips. Later I sit on a bus next to Nick, talking casually, laughing together at a beautiful horrible secret only we will ever know.