Alleyway Vignette, an Excerpt

I stumbled into the side of the alley way, rubbing my shaking shoulder against the rough, cold walls. I shuddered. Dropped to the ground. Collapsed like a cheap table with too much weight placed upon it. I moaned. A pathetically long, wailing moan, wishing someone would take notice.

I whimpered softly and fell silent, listening for an answer in the bustling darkness, feeling the people all around me shuffle through the night. The streets ached and throbbed with a couple million hearts beating, a couple thousand hearts breaking, and a couple hundred hearts stopping in the cool, ridged, easy darkness. People living and moving and working and waiting and crying and sighing and laughing and screaming and dying. The world was loud enough without my voice. The world was quite full enough without me.

I was still and quiet, feeling the place pulling me in. Feeling my presence being erased, breath by breath...

I screamed.

I shrieked at the night, as if someone was listening for me, as if the city could hear my cry.

 It wasn't until I emptied my lungs and lay there, gasping, that I realized the truth; the city could hear me. But it did not care.

From The Deviant Begotten of God [working title]

© rrc. Eyes only please!