MIDNIGHT WALK THROUGH A CITY OF SHADOWS

BY MARLEY TOWNSEND

You have no other options. The streets are empty, skeletal carcasses of the daytime traffic rush, the picked-over remains of the day.

There, to the left, a 7-11, empty but for a single flickering fluorescent. On the right, an empty lot, vacant and staring; rude to the point of revulsion. Empty beer bottles and cigarette stubs paint the dead grass.

You have no other options. So you keep walking. The night air is like a wet fist, and it squeezes you. It doesn't shake, never shakes. Instead it suffocates.

Here and there, a dog may bark. A lost car may skid from street corner to street corner, and then fade into that squeezing darkness. But you are alone. The quiet is almost peaceful, a forceful serenity.

But you are anything but peaceful. You feel jumpy, uncomfortable. Your heart slaps your ribcage relentlessly, and sweat threatens to break through your skin.

Sooner or later, the rip between the city and the suburb blurs, and you come out in a sort of slapped-together hybrid of the two. High look-alike condos meld near seamlessly with broken glass and bird crap.

You've never been this far into the city before. Your life has been one of shadows, of stealth. You've seen the other side of a cop show, and you don't want to go back.

No. You won't let it haunt you, won't let it tear you down. Guilt is a relentless thing, with sharp teeth to gnaw at your conscience until you are but pitiful dust.

No, he deserved it. You whisper it to yourself as you shamble like a human undead, a hopeless zombie down the suburban wasteland. He deserved it. It is your anchor, your hope. But you're having a hard time remembering that.

Oh, and the feeling you get! The rush, the cold sting of the knife! You find yourself smiling, even as the wind finally picks up and the absence of a proper coat sinks in, too.

You look down at your hands. The blood is still there. Indistinguishable stains on your ratty palms. You resist the temptation to bend your neck and lick it off.

The word "help" has always interested you. It is a strange word, really. When surrounded by the noisy clatter and hum of the human population it is tiny, nearly invisible. A hopeless concept.

When uttered in silence, it is loud. You had to clamp your hands over your ears when he said it, whispered it. He didn't even shout, or scream. Just a little whisper. "Help". Like that. And yet you can still hear it, if you pay attention to the panicky whine in your tarnished brain. And you don't want to do that.

"Help," was what made you run. You dropped the knife as soon as he said it. It clattered to the floor soundlessly, and in slow motion. You too were locked in a permanent freeze frame, the mundane hum of the mini-fridge in his apartment a crude counter-act to the steady drip-drip of his blood on the floor.

"Help" is why you are here, alone, walking a weary road. A midnight walk through a city of shadows. You can't help but laugh.

You stop on the corner of Bellevue and Green, unfamiliar names. There stands a streetlamp, the only brave soul left but you. The rust on its pole is peeling in filmy layers, and the black paint peels with it. You run a finger over the grungy metal.

The distant whine of the police breaks the delicate silence. Just like that, your surrogate calm is shattered in a hundred pieces.

They'd have found his body by now. You didn't have time to hide it, did you? In movies, they always had time to watch it disappear into the murky gray of a nameless lake, or to stash it in the back of a trunk.

And the fingerprints! Why didn't you wear gloves, you wonder now, groaning inwardly. They know you now, for sure. They know where and what and even how, if your fallen knife was still lying wounded on the floor.

No matter. They'll never find you, you'll be long gone. Here you are, at the edge of the city-town, looking out into the trash-speckled wilderness. Here you are now, with blood on your hands and a smile on your lips.

You run now, out into the suffocating black, as the sirens grow even louder, even crueler, slicing through the midnight air. You have no other options.

"Help" is such a funny word, don't you think?