We saw this coming.
Everyone knew. But everyone looked the other way. Pretended not to
notice. Or to care. We were all tense. Unsettled. We were nervous.
What could we do?
Which isn’t to
say…
We’d seen the
photos. We saw the police on the street, the detectives. We saw the
reporters and the news crews. The bathroom window broken. A stranger
on the corner. An unknown car parked across the street.
We closed the
doors. Like being in a void. Avoid. Weightless and unreal on the
floor. Fallen. The press of feet and hands on my face, my head.
Stopped center. Even my skin was ill at ease.
But what do we
know? We were obscure strangers in the dark.
“What?”
“We don’t have
to…”
“We don’t have
any choice.”
“Of course we
have a choice. We always have a choice. God damn!”
“Sorry.”
That got half a
smile. But not much more. And no news.
“Never go that
dark.”
The shadows
continued collapsing into the basement where he kept his pornography,
his filth. The beginning, middle, and end of all his horror. All the
conversational cause and effect, false affect. Fate and destiny
forever just below the surface, continuing inevitable. No one paused
to consider these things. We barely spoke to each other.
We smoked
cigarettes.
I remember one
woman, a local girl. Unzipped. On her knees. Surrounded by broken
windows. Sightless windows. Half remembered buildings passed by,
offices moved to new, brighter premises. A disused playground,
abandoned by progress, forgotten by the future. Children crossing
narrow pathways to secret places. Sheltering in improvised homes here
and there.
Some desire nothing
but to keep as they were. Some forget. Some sleep.
No. No. Forget it
all. We had no recollection of night of the murder whatsoever. No
barking dog. No surveillance. Nothing. We were trapped. Cold and
nervous. The following gaze of prying eyes. Only moonlight on the
lawn.
