The first time it happened, Nico was sitting in a café on Bleecker, sipping an overpriced cortado and tapping something vague but urgent into his laptop. A shadow fell across the table.
He looked up.
“YOU AGAIN,” the man shouted, just before tackling Nico to the tile floor.
Silverware clattered. Cups smashed. Someone screamed.
Then the man was gone.
Nico lay on the floor, stunned, staring at the exposed foam under a ripped chair cushion. No one helped him up. The barista stepped over him to sweep broken ceramic.
The second time, it was at a movie theater in Chelsea. Nico was midway through his popcorn when the man burst in from the emergency exit and body-checked him out of his seat.
“YOU AGAIN,” he roared, before disappearing down the aisle.
Nico sat in the aisle for ten minutes. The usher offered him a complimentary soda. He declined.
It happened again on the subway. In a bookstore. At a crosswalk.
Always the same man.
Always the same words.
Always vanishing before Nico could even ask why.
He stopped telling people. They didn’t believe him. Or worse, they did—and started avoiding him.
His sister, Sarai, called one rainy night.
“Come outside. I’m in the car. We need to talk.”
He climbed into the passenger seat, soaked and quiet. She stared straight ahead, hands clenched on the wheel.
“You didn’t tell me,” she said. “About the man.”
Nico stared. “What man?”
She looked at him. “The one who keeps tackling you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he’s been here before. With others. And now he’s here for you.”
She pulled away from the curb.
“I’m taking you to someone. They’ll explain.”
They drove uptown. Rain whispered against the windshield. Nico kept touching his arm where the last collision had left a bruise.
They parked near an unmarked brownstone. A brass plaque by the door read simply:
You Are Here.
“This is a joke,” Nico said.
Sarai didn’t answer. She rang the bell.
A receptionist opened the door. Her nametag read: Marla, Probably.
“He’s ready,” Sarai said.
Marla nodded and led them down a narrow hall into a room that looked like a library had swallowed a meditation studio.
A man in a kimono stood by a chalkboard covered in string diagrams and doodles of what looked like fax machines.
“Welcome,” he said. “You’ve been flagged.”
Nico blinked. “Flagged?”
“By your higher field.”
“What does that mean?”
The man drew a circle. “It means part of you is trying to get your attention. And frankly, he’s not subtle.”
“So... the attacks?”
“Not attacks,” the man said. “Interruptions.”
He drew a lightning bolt through the circle.
“Your self has been stuck. Caught in predictive loops. That part of you—the one with the clarity—he’s trying to break through.”
“By tackling me?”
“Sometimes that’s what it takes.”
Sarai rested a hand on his arm. “I know it’s crazy. But think about it. Hasn’t part of you been waiting for something exactly this weird to happen?”
Nico laughed, quietly. Then louder.
Then something in him stilled.
It wasn’t rage. Not really.
It was pressure. The same kind he used on himself daily—deadlines, dumbbells, calendars packed to the edges.
A voice in his head saying: Earn your air.
From behind a curtain: footsteps. Familiar. Weighted.
The interrupter stepped forward—older, worn, deliberate.
Now that pressure stood across from him in boots and an older face.
He wasn’t sure if he was about to swing or shatter. But the charge in his arm—the one winding up into a punch—drained like water slipping out of a cracked glass.
“Finally,” the man said.
“Who are you?” Nico asked.
The man smiled, boots planted.
“I’m who you become when you stop explaining everything.”
Nico stared. Then nodded, slowly.
The last of the tension let go.
“You again,” he said.
And this time, it didn’t hurt.
This story is part of the DLEIF transmission.