I had this dream a year or so ago and I decided to expand upon it.
Here goes:
The man’s eyes were wide with shock. They didn’t stay focused on any particular place for more than a few seconds. They wandered around the room as if searching for something, as if trying desperately to find an escape. They would linger on an on-looking face for a moment, and then continue upon their futile hunt. Even though it was outstandingly obvious that he was in agony, his eyes did not spill over, as if his mangled body was clinging to each and every drop of liquid he possessed.
I didn’t know his name, although I seemed to have known him for quite some time. He was the unintended recipient of years of pent up rage and pain.
The escalator failure was meant to be trap for another man, or so I thought. Perhaps it was simply done out of the creator’s need to vent his evil. The faceless man’s venom and spite for his loathsome foe were unsurpassed. I would have never known it, had I not caught a glimpse of the man’s eyes through his mask. To this very day I am convinced that they were totally empty, save twin smoldering masses of red brimstone.
As I saw the man laying there, his pitiful legs stripped and severed from their previous glory, the guilt set in. Had I taken action, had I not been suddenly befuddled, I could have saved him.
I watched in a state of paralysis as the faceless man crept to the base of the escalator. He removed three gleaming metal bars from one of the escalator’s floor panels, bars no longer than a child’s finger but twice the girth. In what seemed like a single blink, the faceless one was gone. A blink more and the man was caught.
I can see him, in slow motion, taking a step down. The panel gives way, and the man yells out for help. I stand frozen. His eyes do not spill over; they only grow large when he sees the approaching teeth at the foot of the escalator. He flails his arms and strains against the beast which has swallowed him almost to his torso. It is hopeless yet valiant. I do nothing.
Reality seems to flicker as the beast sinks its many jagged fangs. It is an innocent slideshow. How gracefully the metal slides into his thighs; how they give in with none of the struggle that their owner so viciously pursues. A sanguine fountain pulses to life.
Now he rests, betrayed by his own mortality, surrounded by a puddle of life-force. His eyes are wide with shock. I watch as the color deserts his face. He smiles at me, ever so slightly, as if he understood why I could do nothing. He has forgiven me in a way which I could never allow myself. There is a small crowd around him, but nary a person with medical expertise. Help will arrive too late. His eyes grow tired, weak, but his struggle does not cease. As his gaze quiets and becomes suddenly calm, a single tear slowly slides over his cheekbone and settles finally on the speckled white tile.