The moon had nearly gone. Only a tiny sliver of whitened silver hung delicately from the sky, drifting above the orange aura that seeped through the city. From the ground the moon was pink, not that many people ever gazed up at it. Though from its view of the world it could see all. Even the girl on the nameless street.
She was lost, given the wrong directions, taken the wrong turn, been caught up in the crowd. But she was there, there on that nameless street. It once had a name, but its sign had been ripped out from the concrete earth. Only a pair of vomit filled holes were any clue that this had once been somewhere. Someplace.
Jagged teeth of metal protruded from the derelict gardens, the jungle twisting and turning over the tarnished metal. The houses had teeth too, she noticed. Row upon row of shattered glass clinging to the frames, it’s innards scattered across the road. Fairy dust. Sand. It sparkled under the dull orange haze that billowed from the streetlights lining her dreary way. Some of them were dead. No more light in those broken beacons.
She did not want to be there. To have to tiptoe around the empty bottles, the cigarette butts. The needles. Each a temple, a prayer of loyalty to some unkindly God of their own. An escape from the sky. The nameless street was the church for their congregation. A place the police avoided.
In the near distance, she could hear the roars of men. Perhaps the same that had struggled down the street, leaving their trails of red, liquid gold. Once of them was still sprawled there, oozing. Lying flat with his face towards the moon, motionless. She found a stick and prodded him in the side. Nothing. The red gold still creeping forwards towards her toes.
Something brushed against her back. Bark. Dog. She turned around to see the critter when the wood hit her face for the first time. She stumbled backwards, glass digging into her hands, her back, her neck. The wood fell down upon her face again and again and again. It rained down upon her head, her neck, any other inch of space that it could find that was not bloody and crooked.
“Saw too much boy.” Murmured a voice. The dog was wining. The bat clattered onto the concrete floor. Footsteps. Vanished into the mist of the night.
Blood seeped out of the crack that shone deep in her skull. She trembled, she couldn’t move, she couldn’t think. All she could feel was the pain that was flowing black through her veins. She saw the moon, in it’s shrivelled tainted glory. Uttering something to the one that hung there, she lost here last breath and was still. Rubbish collected at her side.
She was found in the morning. Found by one of the worshippers that often came to the street. No witnesses. No one to talk to.
Once more, dusk fell upon the street, the beacons flickered into life and only a speck of the moon was left. It rolled down into the darkness as the moon shed its tear. The only one that saw that nameless girl on that nameless street.
((I'm sorry it's a huge chunk of text but the pre button thingami doesn't seem to be working for me.))
It was an engaging read.
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