Chava
09-07-2005, 10:10 AM
Just a short story that i had no idea where to post...
The Blinking street lamp at Wests End
A dark suburb; shrouded in complete, so-thick-you-can-cut-it-with-a-knife darkness. A street, Wests End, surrounded by a dozen identical apartment buildings, all of them dusky and some dank, reeking of a particularly ancient mould. Of the four streetlamps that lit Wests End one was alight; casting a luminescent blue green shade upon block no.9. Another flickered with an eerie buzzing sound, like that of a fly that can’t get out of a tin box. The two other lamps were both out. Dead. Annulled. Smashed; by local post adolescents.
Each of the little blocks consisted of four apartments, and an attic storage room. The faded brick walls were covered in moist graffiti, and along the cracks in the foundation concrete grew twisting vines, as if to choke what life may have been in the building once.
Block no.12 was no different. Actually, that’s not true. The palisade window, which must once have belonged to apartment 4, was smashed in this block. It had boards crossing the frame.
If one should decide to forget about the excruciating exterior of Wests End, and actually enter block no.1, and go to the window that existed in the spiral staircase that led from the entry hall to the second floor, one could see a man walking. He meandered down the street in an oddish fashion that was much disregarded among the fancier of the lenders. This man had no home, he had no job, and he had no food. And yet, all these delicate lenders of the ever so fashionable apartment lenders looked at him and decided that there was no way he would ever be invited to a poker evening. After all, there was no way this poor man would be able to play a proper poker face anyway… That, was an art, mastered by those who had lots of money, but wanted more, or by those who had none, and who gambled for their lives.
So it was with some satisfaction that these important inhabitants of Wests End could close their shanty curtains and smile knowingly at each other, over their cards and through their cigar smoke.
Meanwhile, the poor man would meander on down the street. Not noticing the crude hands that cautiously sliding aside a corner of the curtains, so as to keep him from noticing them. They belonged to those without say. Full of boisterous opinions, but with arthritis or some other dysfunction preventing them from putting the force of action behind their sesquipedalian words. They know he needs their help, but they also know that they need a new Gucci bag, and if the budget allows it, a new face lift. He walks on. He can barely walk.
It is at block no.7 that a frightened man steps out onto the meagre doorstep. The meandering man halts for a second to stare in surprise. This new man has a gun, and he is shouting at him. “Get the hell out of my part of the street! What do you think your business is here! Bringing your weapons, your huge starving families, and I don’t know what, so a man can’t get a decent minute of peace around here anymore!” He is shouting and waving his shotgun for the man in the street to see. The man doesn’t understand what is being said, he doesn’t speak English. He doesn’t speak anything. He never had the chance to learn. He never will have that chance either, because no one wants to help him. He only ever brings trouble.
In block no.9, apartment 2, there is a large family. They are fighting with the family in apartment 1. A man steps out of the door, behind him is a pretty woman. He yells at the meandering man. “Go away, we can’t help you! Can’t you see that we have enough problems of our own?” The man can see this; he can see that no one is helping these people either.
He has reached block no.12, and he looks at the broken window. Inside it there are voices, silent, hushed, rushed, quiet voices. They want to liberate themselves they say, from the people who are living next door. But the people next door have weapons and permits. They have government backing, and they are a military force. They cannot be liberated without losing everything. Without losing their lives. The man walks on.
He has reached the end of the street. He has reached the end. Now he knows where the West Ends.
Only so much is goodwill.
The Blinking street lamp at Wests End
A dark suburb; shrouded in complete, so-thick-you-can-cut-it-with-a-knife darkness. A street, Wests End, surrounded by a dozen identical apartment buildings, all of them dusky and some dank, reeking of a particularly ancient mould. Of the four streetlamps that lit Wests End one was alight; casting a luminescent blue green shade upon block no.9. Another flickered with an eerie buzzing sound, like that of a fly that can’t get out of a tin box. The two other lamps were both out. Dead. Annulled. Smashed; by local post adolescents.
Each of the little blocks consisted of four apartments, and an attic storage room. The faded brick walls were covered in moist graffiti, and along the cracks in the foundation concrete grew twisting vines, as if to choke what life may have been in the building once.
Block no.12 was no different. Actually, that’s not true. The palisade window, which must once have belonged to apartment 4, was smashed in this block. It had boards crossing the frame.
If one should decide to forget about the excruciating exterior of Wests End, and actually enter block no.1, and go to the window that existed in the spiral staircase that led from the entry hall to the second floor, one could see a man walking. He meandered down the street in an oddish fashion that was much disregarded among the fancier of the lenders. This man had no home, he had no job, and he had no food. And yet, all these delicate lenders of the ever so fashionable apartment lenders looked at him and decided that there was no way he would ever be invited to a poker evening. After all, there was no way this poor man would be able to play a proper poker face anyway… That, was an art, mastered by those who had lots of money, but wanted more, or by those who had none, and who gambled for their lives.
So it was with some satisfaction that these important inhabitants of Wests End could close their shanty curtains and smile knowingly at each other, over their cards and through their cigar smoke.
Meanwhile, the poor man would meander on down the street. Not noticing the crude hands that cautiously sliding aside a corner of the curtains, so as to keep him from noticing them. They belonged to those without say. Full of boisterous opinions, but with arthritis or some other dysfunction preventing them from putting the force of action behind their sesquipedalian words. They know he needs their help, but they also know that they need a new Gucci bag, and if the budget allows it, a new face lift. He walks on. He can barely walk.
It is at block no.7 that a frightened man steps out onto the meagre doorstep. The meandering man halts for a second to stare in surprise. This new man has a gun, and he is shouting at him. “Get the hell out of my part of the street! What do you think your business is here! Bringing your weapons, your huge starving families, and I don’t know what, so a man can’t get a decent minute of peace around here anymore!” He is shouting and waving his shotgun for the man in the street to see. The man doesn’t understand what is being said, he doesn’t speak English. He doesn’t speak anything. He never had the chance to learn. He never will have that chance either, because no one wants to help him. He only ever brings trouble.
In block no.9, apartment 2, there is a large family. They are fighting with the family in apartment 1. A man steps out of the door, behind him is a pretty woman. He yells at the meandering man. “Go away, we can’t help you! Can’t you see that we have enough problems of our own?” The man can see this; he can see that no one is helping these people either.
He has reached block no.12, and he looks at the broken window. Inside it there are voices, silent, hushed, rushed, quiet voices. They want to liberate themselves they say, from the people who are living next door. But the people next door have weapons and permits. They have government backing, and they are a military force. They cannot be liberated without losing everything. Without losing their lives. The man walks on.
He has reached the end of the street. He has reached the end. Now he knows where the West Ends.
Only so much is goodwill.