The City after Midnight

Please, welcome to the city after midnight, the city filled with drums. Please, excuse. Things get loud here and no one sleeps but everyone pretends, posing in front of disco mirrors like drunken children. It is a city in the rain, artificial rain, yes, falling from wispy clouds of cigarette smoke. True. The rain will continue to fall, many days, long nights. Give it time.

Now comes the Doctor, a good man, but sad. The Doctor in the Dark. I see him by flashes of screaming lightning. A good man, but he carries a gun, looking for ghosts. He has strange dreams and bad coffee. He says little because there is no good news in hospital hallways.

He remembers red lipstick flashbacks, broken neon exposure, and all the non-sequitur posturing in the dressing room. Outside, in the parking lot, blood on the pavement and broken glass. Who was here? What was her name? The Doctor does not say. But I say she will return, inevitable like the rain, but until then the Doctor is distressed, crawling out of his skin and into hers.

Strange strangulations here. Stay away from the dead. Let the police work their disinterested routine investigations. You stay away from the dead. Stolen phone number stalkers and psycho club dealers are near. It does not matter; it was not a robbery. It was something worse.

“Have Gun. Will Stumble.” I clipped the advertisement from the paper. This one and the one about fist fights in the parking lot. Was the Doctor there? I hear many private words secretly spoken, but ask me no more questions. Trust me or trust your dollar. Your choice. Choose. The gun seen in the first act must go off in the third. And it does. Yes. Complicated people always die, but never the right ones.

There is blood, always blood. So much blood. Yes. Action camera news arrive before the police. “Help me,” are the fainting last words of the Doctor. Shooting at shadows, shattering windows. A shout. A woman’s scream and night.

Rain for many days now, yes. Many days and long nights. Maybe you do not come back to the city? Yes?