UNLOCKED

Sounds- the humming of the traffic lights, the chatter of people going about their business, their footsteps, the louds calls, car horns. Lights, colours, everything. I could feel everything, I could hear everything even though my ears were currently getting blasted with the tunes of the weekend – hills. The rest of my senses – sight, smell, and touch – were doing the work for me but just in a different way from what normal hearing would be like. They were sending all these information to my brain, which in turn had created this... bubble, almost like my own personal detection system. When anyone or anything enters the radius of that bubble, my brain calculates how to interact with that entry. For example, the fidgety business class woman about ten steps in front of me. She seemed distressed like she had forgotten something and was busy searching for it in her bag without paying attention to the road ahead. The hairs on my hands were standing, I could feel it, something bad was about to happen. Out the corner of my right eye, I could see a driver about to run a red light, and she had no idea. My vision blanked. I let my mind wander again. My thoughts become invaded with things irrelevant to the current situation, and in turn, that affected all of my other senses. Right now, I was just a random guy listening to music, oblivious to the rest of the world. ‘What if I dug a hole in my backyard and found some buried diamonds in there. Wait, am I reaching too big? Okay let’s say gold. Yeah.... a bag of gold. I could definitely invest in this, and that.... have even more money than I already have. Maybe consider finally getting that car and drive to college in a cool whip, nothing to fancy. All will be......’ Car horns. Loud enough to reach past the headphones blocking my ears. I immediately took it off, and everything hit me all at once. Sounds, colours, the hustle and bustle of the road. I could hear everything, see everything, feel everything, smell everything around me. I could also see the woman, as if in slow motion. Her head whips up quickly as the driver blasts the horns at her while also stepping on the breaks. The tires screeched to a halt, but the tell-tale thump of a hit sounded. It felt like the world around also slowed down. “Oh my God!” Audible gasps, curses, screams, all from onlookers, unable to do anything or maybe wanted to, but they just were not fast enough or could not have seen all of it happening ten steps before. I could have walked a bit faster, to touch her, to get her focus back on the world, but I let myself get distracted again. When everything began to move again, people rushed over to the woman who was now lying on the ground, her distracting bag now a few metres from her outstretched hand. Her eyes widened, her forehead bleeding but didn’t look too serious. Her mouth hung open, and the sight of her chest heaving up and down faster than normal showed that she was panting from the shock of almost becoming past tense. My heart was thumping loudly in my chest. I had to swallow to wet my dry throat. I had just almost witnessed someone getting run over in front of me. Luckily, the driver had slowed down enough to give her only a minor concussion rather than send her to the ICU. I had it in mind as I continued on my way to lectures. And sorry, it wasn’t a, for example, it actually happened.