The Days and Months We Were First Born- the Unraveling by Christopher Hunter Page B

skinny frame with visible ribcages. He had to have been in his eighties, easy.
    The old man was on his knees. He was hymning a prayer in Arabic, zoned out, and oblivious to anyone and anything around him. He hymned his prayer with a soulful beauty, as if he could make all the wrong around him right with his song. I stood and watched. I was lost in fascination.
    ***
    Three minutes later, my concentration was broken. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted three teenage Muslims. They were standing next to each other a block and a half down Communipaw Avenue. They were yelling something to each other in Farsi, and they were looking right at me.
    Sensing trouble, I forgot all about the praying man and continued west.
    The teenagers followed.
    I hurried my pace. And in turn, they hurried theirs.
    My breathing increased, panic trembled through me, and I told myself to stay calm in vain .
    I looked back toward them. And they were growing more emboldened with every step.
    By the time I reached West Side Avenue, they started running after me. I took off as well. And now we were in a sprint, an all-out chase.
    Geez, this is nice. Didn’t even make it through Jersey City.
    The blocks were long, but I raced pass one after the other. I had to leap over garbage, and swerve around abandoned baby strollers and other shit dumped on the sidewalk. The young thugs behind me were yelling in excitement. They were younger and more determined, and they were slowly but surely closing in. I was losing stamina. The Lincoln Highway Bridge was dead ahead, but I wasn’t going to make it, and even if I did, they would have followed. Something had to give. And it did.
    At Marcy Avenue, I turned a sharp left around the corner of a building.
    I stood my ground. I was breathing heavily, damn near ready to pass out. Then I pulled out the 9mm.
    Seconds later, my pursuers rounded the corner, still yelling. They had knives drawn, and they were thrilled in their pursuit of a victim.
    That was until they found themselves facing the barrel of the victim’s gun.
    All three stopped in their tracks. They put their hands in the air and looked back and forth between each other, the barrel of my gun, and my exhausted and angry face. Realizing they were in deep shit, one of them spoke in heavily accented English.
    “Take it easy, brother…We mean you no harm.”
    “Who in the hell do you take me for,” I said. “Drop the goddamn knives or I’m going to drop you!”
    They did as I told them.
    “Ok, brother? Are we ok now?”
    Now that I had an up-close look at them, the teenagers were much younger than I had thought. They couldn’t have been older than sixteen. They were immune, they were scared, and they didn’t want to die at my hands. I was scared too, but I’d have been damned if I was about to show it—especially to them.
    “Please,” said the second teenager, “We are hungry. We have not eaten in three days…Please, brother! Please!”
    Their desperation increased as the seconds went by. I could tell that they were not thugs by nature. They were just survivors, trying to survive however they could. My anger and exhaustion gave way to calm and sympathy.
    “Where are your people? Who are you with? Are there more of you?” I said.
    The third teenager replied, “We have no people. Everyone is either dead or gone. Our family is dead.”
    “So why are you still here? Why didn’t you leave with the others?” I asked.
    “Because the others took everything,” replied the third teenager. “They took everything and they slaughtered what remained of our family. We only survived because we were hidden. We were immune, and our family didn’t want us to die like them. Not when we could have lived. We only came out when everyone was gone…when it was safe.”
    The teen was serious. He looked right into my eyes. H is face was as bitter as it was sincere.
    “Which way did they head?” I asked.
    “To the north,” said the second teenager. He was trembling.