I waited out in the cold for Sarah. The car park was beginning to clear. Some stragglers from the local bars flirted across the empty spaces toward the road on the opposite side and over to the taxi rank. Two, who were obviously intoxicated, caused a car to screech to a halt and I turned to see. When I turned back, something seemed to move in the shadows about fifteen feet in front of me to my right. I felt a chill up my spine and shuddered a little, then collected myself as I thought it was probably a drunk person taking a piss.

I looked down to my watch, and suddenly was startled by a very angry apparition in front of me.

 “Arghh arghhh,” was all it seemed to say, but I must have been frightened beyond all belief because as I tried to talk, I could only gnash my teeth.

Again all I could hear were long sentences of  “Arghhh Arghhhhghhh.”

Then a slap…. I was stunned and stood looking into what I now realized was a reflection of myself, only dressed in some weird magician’s cloak.

“You fool. You complete fool. You throw your marriage away for this. Arrgg.”

It spoke and its voice sounded like a heavy smokers, only it also seemed to condition the wind to replay its sentences a second later, with a screechy violin accompaniment.

“Wh, whh, what?” I replied rather shakily.

“You. Ssss. You can't pay the proper respects to your wife. You do this,” It said.

Sarah - I had met through a swingers club. We were meeting to have casual sex. It was not the first time I had tried this, but other meetings had never worked out.

“Yess. You know why those other meetings never worked out. Me!” It said.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I am what you call a conscience. Only I am more than this. I live. Or maybe you call us guardian angels but we are more than that. We Eil souls. We live after you. Your mistakes, your happiness, your loves, your inspirations, and everything else you feel. Except sometimes, we get the chance to make changes.”

If I could have described the language he spoke, you would never comprehend it.  Though I understood him, it was as if he were German or something rather than a direct copy of me.

“So I go now. Is that it?  I just leave without meeting Sarah and everything is all right?” I asked.

“It's not so simple now.” It replied.

I looked at him. It was difficult to look at him. His image sprayed everywhere and seemed to reach into me and tweak parts of my memory like small emotions being played by a small fiddle.

“You must give.” It said.

'Give what?' I wondered. 

Emotions where spilling out of my mind like a sea of projected images spilling out of a movie theatre screen.

“You must give time,” It breathed anxiously.

Just as his chest fell flat from his heavy breath another car screeched behind us and it seemed the same two drunks where trying to cross the street. I immediately ran, knowing, somehow knowing there was to be an accident.

I saw the two drunks in front. Everything was slow motion. Something like magnetism pulled me to the car and I ran to the front of it before it hit the first drunk. I pushed the drunk away, went down by my right leg and hit the car full force with my head. I could feel my skull open up and grey light and streaky black cloud - all of my vision except a squint to my left.

I lay on the road looking up. I could hear the driver getting out of the car. I could see the sky through grey tinted light and black streaks. But there was no drunks. Then I saw my other self come towards me, my Eil.

It came towards me from the sky, closer and closer. It spoke over and over the same word.

“Time. Time. Time. Time...”