The room is silent. There is only one man, Phil; he sits tired alone at his desk waiting for news. In no time the big red door to his office opens revealing the slender frame of Dale. Any previous optimism that Phil had is now gone when he sees the glum look that paints his detective’s face.

“Give it to me straight Dale. What’s the latest with Frank Banks?”

“Well sir,” Dale stammers, “He…he got away.”

“What do you mean he got away? Last I heard he was surrounded by some of our best men!”

Dale freezes afraid of speaking just stands mutely staring at the wooden floor.

“Dale!” His boss’s face turning an intense red, “I put you in charge and you let him escape?”

“But Phil I…”

Interjecting and voice trembling Phil screams, “You failed! You let Franks Banks get away again! I equipped you with a S.W.A.T team and you still failed? You knew where he was Dale! You knew and you still botched it up! Answer me Dale!”

“Phil this is just…”

“Another mistake? You know what? No more excuses Dale, make the arrest or I’ll find someone who can. We only get so many chances and your time is coming to an end very soon. Now get out of my face and do what you have to do!”

Dale nods, pushing the door to his boss’s office open he leaves utterly dejected. Taking his jacket off he sets down his equipment in his office and decides to go for a walk. With his head hanging low he slips by his cohorts’ presences, unresponsive. As the door of the police station closes behind him he knows that he has come to the end of the rope. Walking onto the sidewalk he strolls forward lost in his thoughts.

Click, clack, click, clack. Shoes greeting the sidewalk with a fury, the man blazes forward. His begging muscles are greeted with no relief of rest. No, he cannot allow that, never in a million years. The civilians’ of the sidewalk lost in their own worlds see the man as nothing more than the determined jogger. They take care to move away as he darts forward in a straight line.  Got to get safe, he thinks to himself ignoring the badgering of a passerby.

As perplexing as they are, he maneuvers the streets as if his own creation. Going seamlessly from sidewalk, to alley, to sidewalk he moves like a cheetah refusing not once to break stride.  Got to get safe, he thinks to himself ignoring the helpless woman he recently shoved down.

The bite of the cold night air finally is too much for his lungs. He stops, doubling over heaving fervently for gulps of air to quench his fiery chest. But he cannot stop. He must escape!

It’s been over an hour since Dale lost Frank Banks. To him Frank is an enigma, always several feet ahead as if somehow destined to be. Dale racks his mind searching for an answer as to why he constantly failed but there was no answer.

As the man turns the corner of the sidewalk he is greeted with the sight of a familiar face.

Absolutely bewildered Dale screams, “Banks!”

Banks continues his desperate sprint edging several feet ahead of an increasingly frantic Dale.

Giving up on chase, Dale reached into his pockets only to find nothing. He had left all of his equipment at the station.

He had failed again with the fading figure of Banks being only a step away.