A Fold in the Tent of the Sky by Michael Hale

mechanism.
    Betty called out to him but he kept going. He decided he wanted to make the light of the next big intersection, get across it before the light changed, so he pretended not to hear her. Richards Street clogged with pre-rush hour traffic; not gridlocked yet. Nervous Mercs and Pathfinders trying to cut through strings of pedestrians at the corner.
    He made it to the other side of the street, then turned to see where she was. Betty was running after him toward the intersection, her hand pushing down on her big shoulder bag so it wouldn’t bounce around. She had platform shoes on andhe could see she was having difficulty moving that fast. Jesus, she’s such a fucking bimbo.
    He held up his hand as if to tell her to stop right there where she was, not to try running the light; but as his hand came up an odd twist of perspective made the scene before him flatten. There she was, half framed in the space between his outstretched thumb and index finger, no bigger than the span of his hand: Betty a little doll four inches high all of a sudden, an insubstantial paper doll of a figure racing up to the curb; the cars and trucks like Tonka toys, playthings. And instead of the gesture holding her back on the sidewalk, it seemed to do the opposite.
    As his hand came down (it was as if she were stuck to it, pulled by the tingle in his arm, the static electricity at the ends of his fingers), it dragged the Betty doll toward him. She stepped right out into the street.
    It was one of those luxury Japanese cars—pastel curves coming fast around the corner, trying to get through before the cross traffic started moving, making a swift right turn between the clusters of pedestrians still crossing Richards Street—one of the Tonka toys coming right for her as she stepped off the curb. The unfolding of what happened next seemed ineluctable; the interlocking elements of the scene were choreographed in the same way that a dropped pebble connects with a still pool.
    The streamlined hood of the car scooped her up, so that her legs seemed to fly off to the left. Her shoes were flung from her feet like shrapnel; one of them bounced off a newspaper box and her purse came loose. Her hip came down hard on the hood with a muffled, timpanic thud, which wasfollowed by the thwack of her head hitting the windshield—all of this was underscored with the chirpy screech of the car’s tires. She slid off the front of the car and ended up out of sight on the other side of it. A woman beside Simon shrieked and gasped out an “Oh my God.” He heard a man’s voice next to his ear saying, “Holy shit.” There was a silence then, as if between movements—no clapping—as it all played itself out to the denouement: onlookers formed a crater of concern; one of them came forward, the one who knew CPR—a doctor maybe; then the conscientious few who tried to prove the value of owning a cellular phone started punching away. An aviary clamor of 9-1-1’s chirped around him.
    Simon watched and held back, not saying a word. He thought to himself, Jesus, that was weird. He thought about the sensation in his chest as he’d held up his arm. That’s never happened before. He was a little dizzy, but he felt good. A bit spacey was all, like he’d just come out of a short nap. Like that time when he was a kid; the day his friend Billy’s dog had died.
    He walked over to where Betty’s bag was lying in the road. Her stuff was all over the place. Stuff he recognized: her wallet and her makeup, bits of crumpled paper. Hard candies he actually remembered her taking one time, in a restaurant, from the little brown tray with the “Visa” logo stamped on it. (He had paid for the meal and she’d taken both of the complimentary mints.) He found the book they had just got out of the library underneath a parked car. John Lennon peering right at him from the shadows. It was a picture probably taken right