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.
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