Everything Is in the Corner

I want to get to the other side of the fence. No use. The fence is new, panelled, very high. Nothing to put a foot on, no way to pull yourself up.

I remember the Master telling me that everything I have is in the corner. Everything for me is in the corner.

I run to one corner, looking for a way out. Nothing in the corner either. I run to the other corner. There too I can’t get over.

But it’s up to me what the ending will be. I can do anything I want, because this is only a simulation. This isn’t really happening. I’m already at the very end of the game.

I grab the panel with my hands and start pulling it towards me. To my surprise I manage to bend it enough to climb onto it.

Climbing, I lose one Croc.

I’m on the other side. I’m free. I’m standing on the street among pines.

I make a quick calculation: it’s not worth going back for the Croc. I have to run. I brush off my foot and run on, that one foot in nothing but a sock.

The street is iced over. The sock soaks through with snow more and more. In the end I start running on one leg, because I’m too cold. I hop like Forrest Gump.

It gets colder and colder. To the end of the street, where the bus stop is, the one I want to reach, there’s still three hundred metres or so.

I pull off the sock and throw it away. I think that’ll be better. Now I have one bare foot.

I go on, limping. I’m so tired of the hopping that I lean against a concrete fence and look around. By a fair reckoning, those policemen should have come for me here by now.

And in the prophecy it says I’ll have to jump onto a police car and smash the windscreen with my bare hands.

I move forward, but very slowly. It’s dark. In the distance I see the light of a lamp, the one by the bus stop, the place I’m heading for.

I’ve had enough. I want them to catch me, because I’m simply freezing. I have no jacket, I’m missing a shoe and a sock. I’m starting to be afraid I could get frostbite on this foot.

And then, behind me, in the distance, the lights of a car appear.

Ah. So they’re coming for me now.

The headlights reach me. When it’s close, I walk into the middle of the road and stand facing the police car.

They pull up and stop a metre from me.

I jump onto the bonnet and start pounding the windscreen with my bare hands. It cracks again and again under my fists. I don’t break through it.