Cal was drenched
in sweat and his walk wasn't getting any easier. For a sixteen-year-old
boy, Cal was exceptionally large and athletic, but that didn't seem to help
much, here, in this situation. He had been fighting his way up this
hallway for as long as he could remember and it seemed that everyone else was
going in the opposite direction. Occasionally he would meet someone else,
going the same direction as he, they would share a few words but then eventually
drift apart. Every so often, he would come across a small archway off to
the side of the hallway, just big enough to hold his hulking frame, but
eventually he would have to step back into the flow, going up stream.
Once he came face
to face with an extremely large woman in a flowered moo-moo, who stank of fish
and alcohol. She grabbed hold of his belt and wouldn't let go, until Cal
eventually broke her grip. Another time, and this one really surprised
him, a very petite cheerleader, about his age, came up to him from the
side. At first Cal thought she too was going up stream, but when she
stopped him in his tracks and with her lips uncomfortably close to his, almost
turned him downstream, Cal pushed her off and ran for a nearby alcove, actually
losing about ten feet of progress, but freeing himself from her grip.
It may have been
about twenty minutes before he maintained his composite and re-entered the
flow. It was the tall skinny guy with the shoulder length gray hair that
caught Cal's eye. The guy was definitely moving upstream, in what looked
like a nearly effortless motion, and this truly perplexed Cal. But then
Cal saw the rest of them. There were probably ten or twelve of them, all-working
together, like a flock of Canadian geese, taking turns running point. The
tall guy with gray hair, whom Cal now realized was dressed in all black, made
eye contact and waved Cal over. Cal weaved through the mass of southbound
people and joined the group. Cal lost his individualism, but now covered
more ground than ever before.