The Street (standard:mystery, 1155 words)
Author: Xin	Added: Nov 04 2000	Views/Reads: 3709/2777	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Time passes by..the one and only, faithful Time, and where are we going? In a long, grey death row, following each other.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

little tube attached to your heart, and that little tube the only thing 
that keeps you going, and if some merciful hand pulled that tube out, 
out you were. Gone. Wake up. Eat. Get dressed. Go to work. Work. Go 
back home. Watch whatever's on TV. Sleep. Wake up. Eat. Get dressed. Go 
to work, work, work.... 

I stopped in the middle of the street, among the cars that were going
past me at the speed of light. They didn't see me, or maybe they did, 
but it was so far out of the driver's routine to stop, that they hadn't 
bothered. 

It started to rain. The droplets were tiny, cold and wet...trying to
cover the City, maybe trying to give it a bit of colour, to make the 
tiniest difference to the sea of grey...but the only good that the cold 
rain could do was changing the shade of grey, to a much darker, more 
solid grey. Now at least I could tell the City was really there, not 
just a figment of my imagination. 

Time went on. The Shadows were walking towards the mouths of the subway,
waiting to swallow the flock, only to regurgitate them again and again, 
at the other end. The shadows were talking to each other, or maybe to 
themselves, without words, the words silent and empty of meaning and 
sense and tone...The shadows laughed, their lips stretching on their 
faces, senseless, twisted and fake. 

I stopped, and for a second, time seemed to stop with me, a faithful and
loyal companion. The shadows stopped in mid-stride; the grey flock came 
to a halt. Nothing changed. The expression on the Shadows faces was the 
same, a kind of patient expectancy, like an animal that knows its going 
to be fed shortly. They were statues, with the expression permanently 
embedded on their cold stone faces. The buildings were getting closer 
and closer...seemed to want to cover us, collapse on the army of 
Shadows, make them a permanent part of the background. 

It started to pour. Or maybe it was just me. I sat down on a grey stone
fountain, in the middle of the grey concrete street, and wept. I wept 
for all and every one of the stone Shadows that were stuck in time with 
me, wept for every one of the grey buildings trying to reach the sky, 
and for the clouds that were trying to cover the City, a tiny part of 
the dying grey World. 

any comments appreciated, write to xin@twistie.8m.com 


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