Cracked

There's no music quite as wonderful as the sound of shoes on pavement. It's the sound of everyone rushing from point A to point B or C to D, wherever. I could listen to it for hours. Each foot makes a different note, becoming part of a never-ending song. On a perfect day, I stand forever and listen to the clicking of heels and the scraping of sneakers. Most of the time, I listen for the sound of his shoes, the sound his shoes made the day I didn't see him anymore.

From a billion floors above me, clouds of glittering red confetti fall like snow all over the sidewalk. People are celebrating other people somewhere up there, but I'm all the way down here, going back home. I know that he won't be there, so I'm taking my time tonight, cherishing every step. I don't really even notice people staring anymore, though I can guess no one's ever seen someone so gaunt and covered in dried blood.

Sometimes I don't even bother going to sleep or anything. I just sit on the benches and listen to the people moving. Hence my appearance. Though I certainly don't look it, I really am still perfectly sane. In fact, I'm the essence of sane intensified one thousand times its normal size. I'm more real than anyone walking this street tonight.

To see me is to see a desensitized person. Like a strip of tape rendered completely useless after repeated sticking. I don't care if you were just in a terrible accident and need an ambulance or your baby isn't breathing. I'm not going to do anything to help you, because you never did anything to help me. You looked at me like I was crazy when I ran here screaming and crying and bleeding. You grabbed your child's hand and walked the opposite direction, or just didn't pay attention. I tried to make you all listen, but your shoes kept scraping away, becoming quieter the farther you ran away. None of you cared that there was a bullet in my head.

That seems so long ago. I don't even remember when he left anymore. The only thing I do remember is the sound his shoes made on the floor as he walked toward the elevator without looking back at me. It was the last time I saw him until tonight.

He was sitting on the same bench I'd been sitting on all afternoon. For a few minutes, all I did was stare at him, dressed to the nines, checking his watch and brushing the bright red confetti out of his hair. He was waiting for the bus to come to take him wherever he lives now to whomever he lives with. As soon as I stepped under the streetlight, he looked up and our eyes met for the first time since the day I didn't see him anymore.

I kept my eyes on his while I reached into my pocket and pulled out the same gun that put the bullet in my head. Everyone's shoes suddenly thundered away all over the place. But he just sat there, staring. Neither of us said a word to each other tonight. I spared him the painful indignity of hearing me speak before I pulled the trigger. It was, after all, the courteous thing to do.

Even in death, all he did was stare up at me from the ground. His expression was completely devoid of meaning, but his eyes were still fixed on mine. He must have known what was coming. I put his gun back in my pocket and listened to the sound of sirens approaching from a distance. I knew it was time to finally go back home after countless years of waiting.

Quickly and quietly, my shoes splashed in the blood and confetti as I walked along the cracked street that led back to where I was the day I didn't see him anymore.