Work progresses on this story, and if all goes well, I may actually have it done by the end of the week. I will be happy to send complete copies to anyone who asks.
Enjoy.
gargh =:]
***
It was nights like this that I would usually take a walk- late, warm, thick, and heavy. I didn’t need any other excuses on nights like this, but I had crossed that fine line between needing fresh air and needing to clear my head that could prove the diference between sleeping at all, or letting the nightmares follow me into the morning.
Moot point, I conceded, directing my attention to the fact that the dreams were meeting me before I fell asleep. What chance did I have of fighting off the night terrors and the damned shakes that lasted all day afterwards, if I found dreams waiting for me on my ceiling before closing my eyes?
Mom was right; I needed a shrink. Of course, for her, therapy meant simply finding a wife who made great pie. Proper interpretation of Mom’s advice usually did me well. Maybe I should make some phone calls in the morning.
I put my hands deep in the pockets of the windbreaker, pushing the corners of the unzipped jacket into arrows that pointed towards my sneakers. I dipped my chin so the bill of the baseball cap hid my face, and trudged like a cliché down the alley, through fog and around heaps of garbage.
Not true, I countered. The image, the dancing couple, that had to do with light, more than anything else. I hadn’t noticed any shadows while they danced in their spotlight. Not my shadows, only theirs. For some reason, all the dark things on my ceiling held no terror for me, while they were there.
I clumphed through a gravel spill from some recent demolition work and ducked under a chain so I could turn down a driveway. I stopped dead.
The sky was an ambient orange-purple ceiling getting lower as the fog rolled in. The universe went about its business of shrinking us into pockets of isolation as walls of mist came up the narrow streets and fell off of rooftops as it always did this close to the docks this time of night, this time of year. There were streetlights here and there on the actual streets, but I was making my way, by and large, following habitual routes lit only by the occasional backlighted window pane from the apartments above, and the city’s own banked glow.
I had come around the corner of a high wall that separated the alley I was walking down from the driveway that ‘L’ed at the chain to turn into some kind of small loading dock. There was one harsh light mounted inside the small courtyard that spilled light just past its threshold, past the wall, and into the end of the driveway.
I stood with my back to the chain, my toes on the edge of the pool of light. Down the driveway was indistinct murk. To my right, was the darkness of the building facing the loading dock, not quite lit by the downcast spot in the dock’s courtyard. Beside and behind me to either direction were narrowing distances that closed off any light as alley walls came together in the veil of night’s gloom and poverty. My mouth hung open.
A man, across the yard, pulled a woman into the light. At first it parodied my earlier bedroom musings enough for me to close my eyes and shake my head to rattle something loose. When I opened them again, I could see that this was no set of dance partners. He pulled the woman roughly behind him by the wrist. He took three sloping strides into the center of the lot where a chair was set up in the middle of piles of crates that had been left out to be dealt with the next day. He twisted her arm, forcing her to stumble into the seat. She clung to its sides for support. I couldn’t make out what was said over the not-quite-distant traffic. In fact there was no sound from the couple whatsoever. No crunching of grit under his heavy stride. No scrape of the chair as the woman got settled.
Neither of them were in a position to see me, I figured. But she was turned more to face me, while the man was more with his back to me as he circled around to a nearby crate.
The woman settled herself into the chair, cool with contempt. I have to be specific here. This was the woman. I hadn’t stumbled upon some strange date-gone-wrong-and-about-to-end-badly after all. I wasn’t sure if that would have been worse or better. I shook my head again, but nothing came loose.
The man was not the man though. I should be specific again. He was dressed in a suit, but looked like a gorilla- wide shoulders, hairy knuckles, and all. He was a brute. And he didn’t like what she had just said.
He stepped up and slapped her hard across the mouth, just as a truck backfired a block away. A dog whimpered off to my right, and ran down the alley away from the noise. I looked back and saw that the woman was slumped back in the chair, blood trickling from her mouth in stark red contrast to her silver gown and pale skin.
Gorilla Boy went back to the crate he had been standing by and approached the woman again, carrying a length of rope that he used to tie her to the chair with. He was muttering the whole time the way bastards do when they want to justify hitting a woman. She began to stir before he was finished, but she didn’t struggle.
The cold fires came back into her eyes though, and I shivered despite the warm.
When he was finished he stepped back and talked some more. She said nothing. She just stared at him, chin lifted, daring him again.
Her eyes flicked to the side. In that instant the brute turned with her gaze, towards me.
And the light bulb exploded.
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