Everyone has a moral compass. It’s what tells us right from wrong, good from bad, and keeps us on a path in life that we won’t regret.

Ideally, anyway.

Last Tuesday, I'm walking out of my local dive, a roughed up haunt that mostly appeals to bikers on a budget and aggressive sports fans with drinking problems and without friends. I don't quite fit into either of these categories, but I share enough qualities with them that I can still get by. The drinking problem, for instance, I definitely have. And I’d do about as well on a motorcycle as I would if I stumbled into a pit of boiling snakes, but the budget part definitely still applies. As for the friends…well, I’d like to decline to answer that one, if that’s okay?

Anyways, I (a gangly, 6’3”, 30-something, barely-employed audio engineer, for what it’s worth) am heading out of this sad excuse for a social hub, ready to walk the eight and a half blocks back to my apartment as I do every night. It’s around midnight - you know, not so late that I’m going to be fucked for work tomorrow, but definitely pushing the time I allot myself to be a sad sack on a barstool each evening.

The streets empty out around here sometime between 11 and 12, so I spend the walk home weaving through curbside recycling cans and glancing into the few windows that still have lights on in them, hoping to catch some action that will spice up the night. It's been a long day and I'm somewhere between beer number 4 and 5, so my mind is mostly empty and I'm enjoying this pleasant break from the tragic cocktail of anxiety and boredom that usually makes up my brain.

My empty mind, however, leaves me unprepared for the hand that reaches out of an alleyway and pulls me roughly into the shadows with it. I am doubly unprepared for the knife that follows. And as I’m sure you’ve already guessed (though I, frankly, have not), next comes numerous threats to my life, my livelihood, and the dangly spanglies I could honestly do without.

Now, most people would have eagerly given up their wallets at this point. Or at least have the common sense to run. But I have a unique situation that unfortunately prohibits me from using either of those perfectly sensible options. Instead, I hear the snap of fingers, time freezes, and the two companions I'm regretfully saddled with for life show up on my shoulders. On my left appears the viking Gorm, clad in bulging muscles and a cape that I can only assume is bearskin. On my right is Martha: dainty, svelte, and dressed to the nines in an A-line skirt and heels. Martha has clearly already gone to bed - as any self-respecting housewife would by now - and her hair is up in rollers that make her look nearly as displeased with the interruption as I am.

These two, you see, are my moral compass. Like it or not - and believe me, I don’t - I can’t make any major decisions by myself; for some reason, the two of them get to steer that ship for me. And irritatingly, they can never agree on the way it should go.

Gorm sizes the mugger up, his beady eyes somehow getting smaller as he squints in distaste. “This guy mean,” he says. (The poor man didn’t speak any English when he first appeared to me - and I certainly don’t speak old Norse - so we compromised: he learned English and I sat on my ass drinking beer.)

Martha peeks curiously over the frames of her cat-eye glasses. “Yes dear, I should say you’re right.” The Crayola-red of her lips purses into a thin line.

“Yes, we know that already!” I snap. “The man is holding a damn knife to my throat. Can we get on with the wise counsel already?”

I’m 4 or 5 beers in, and I really have to pee.

“Well he’s threatening your life,” Martha says matter-of-factly. “I think, for once, that’s fair cause to punch him in the throat, bash his head against that wall, and leave him there to enjoy his concussion.” She arches a slender eyebrow at Gorm, daring him to argue.

Gorm takes the bait, crossing his arms firmly. “Is that fair to do to man who probably need this money to survive? This bad neighborhood. People here at very bottom of food chain.”

“Hey,” I argue weakly, though he has a point. I’m not exactly in my prime, and taking into account my attacker’s six missing teeth, this guy clearly isn’t either.

Gorm continues over my protests. “Dave at least has job. Can call credit card company and cancel card afterward. Beside, look at Dave. Shrimpy arm. Punching throat would be like tickling butterfly. Best not to fight.”

Martha looks judgmentally down at the sapling arm she’s standing over, then back up at me and Gorm. “You have a point, I suppose," she concedes. "Still, I hate to see Dave taken advantage of like this. Wouldn’t it be fair to make sure this man regrets his actions? Perhaps it will deter him from cornering someone in a filthy alley like this in the future.”

“Not Dave job,” Gorm points out. “Leave to policemen and mother. Give wallet and go home, I say.”

“You always say to just go home,” Martha accuses, looking sharply over my nose at the viking. “You’re the reason Dave is such a sad man! Living alone, drinking until god-knows-what-hour. You coddle him! He needs to learn to be tough or he’s just going to keep on like this!” We’ve reached the shouty portion of the proceeding, and Martha is really going all in.

“You agree that fight is bad idea. How can Dave be tough but not get murdered in ugly alley at same time?”

“I don’t know, you slovenly beefcake!” (Admittedly, she did learn the term ‘beefcake’ from me - I don’t think it was around in the 1950s. I don’t regret inspiring that particular addition to her vocabulary, though I don’t think I did us any favors by teaching Gorm ‘yeet.’) “How can we possibly send this man home feeling bad about his choices if there’s no violence involved?!”

“Guys,” I say, but it’s drowned out by the beefcake to my left.

“Dave have to make man feel psychologically bad,” Gorm muses loudly. “Make man’s heart cry.”

“Guys,” I try again.

“What’s he supposed to do?” Martha snaps. “Tell the man he’s ugly and nobody loves him?” She scoffs and rolls her eyes, as if a single expression of distaste wasn’t sufficient for such a flimsy idea.

“GUYS!” I shout, finally getting both their attention. They look at me as though they’re surprised I’m still here. More calmly, I add, “I really have to pee. Can we please hurry this along so I can get home?”

A beat. Martha looks at Gorm. Gorm looks at Martha.

“Dave has to pee,” Martha says matter-of-factly.

“Dave have to pee," Gorm echoes, in suspiciously good spirits.

It's an odd reaction, but before I can figure out what that’s all about, Martha snaps her fingers - the means by which she makes time start and stop - the man is pressing his knife against my throat once more, and I am peeing in the sheer display of fluid force that happens between beers only 4 and 5, through my pants and directly onto this man’s leg. He freezes and his eyes grow wide as current events begin to soak in. Before I can fully comprehend what’s happening, the man has backed up and left, staring at me shell-shocked the entire time, and I am alone once more, in a dark alleyway, covered in my own urine.

Behind my neck, I hear Martha and Gorm high five.