He approached the crosswalk laden with a weighty pack on his back and a mangled bicycle in hand.  He was marching through pain, counting his steps, keeping to a pace of eighty a minute.  He looked neither this way or that; by focusing entirely on the crosswalk, he tried to sense when to step in.  He wanted for the moment to be one in which the world just seems to align itself to you — and, taking it to be so, he stepped down, fell right into his pace, kept counting, and got to the other side.  He had twenty-one more blocks to cover, and a doubt about being able to cover them.  Didn’t matter, he had to keep the pace, keep walking.  When what’s happened to you is stronger than what you can make happen, you’ve got to put your head down and bring out the stubborn in you.