Piercing Hot Cat
You find yourself walking along the sidewalk. The streetlights have been on for a while. It accentuates the feeling that something really ought to be happening. It is winter though, so you understand why many people are all caught up in their plans to stay warm and not be out. Even though it is early, it seems that you are the last survivor. Everyone else has been slain by their day of compromising work, or has been so beaten by the wind and cold that they cannot stand outside. So there is only you. You are all alone. You get the feeling that you are not any greater than any of the winter depressives who have been frightened away from getting out on a winter evening.
You wonder what you have yet to encounter that will certainly be unbearable. Look at your odds. Everyone but you has been ruined already. You know it is very likely that you are just on the verge of a horrible experience. You are so on edge that a leaf blowing by almost sends you into hysteria. You're running late, but you're in no rush. What are you doing in this place though. The boredom succoms to The Fear. You say to yourelf, "I have to get out of here. I really don't belong out here. I hope I get there soon. This is too much right now. Too cold. Too lonely. Too eerie".
You turn off of the main street two blocks past the old convenience store where the awkward guy is always waiting to ask for change. He wasn't there tonight. How many minutes has it been since the last car passed? You aren't excited to see anyone drive by, but it would be nice to have some more light on this street. That unwelcome feeling makes your eye twitch. Wondering where to point your eyes, because the porch lights are off at every house and you don't want to be staring and accidentaly find out that someone was actually sitting there in the shadows watching you. Watching you slip in the mudd puddles with the thin layers of dirty ice on top that looks like dry ground. If only there were some more light then you could avoid the puddles.
Well there isn't any traffic so you decide to just walk in the middle of the street where there are no puddles. Where you drive your car on an important day to keep it clean. There isn't much room to try to stay in your lane anyway, what with all of the cars parked on the sides of this dark narrow street. There is barely any of the yellow line left on the pavement anymore. Especially compared to the freshly laid double stripe on the main street. Something about that new paint makes you smile. Even as you walk staring at the lack of paint below you, the memory of the new paint makes you smile as you think of all the neat things you could have written on the street for everyone to see permanently. Like that bike tire print in the cement on the sidewalk you see everytime you walk that way to the store. If that were your mark, it would be a permanent unaging piece of you.
"Cabinet pile?," you hear and startles you. It's coming from somewhere in the dark but it is very close for comfort. Look around but you're only hearing the faint breathing of that young girl who sounds completely unfamiliar. You try to sound authoritative to deter the possibility of an attack,"Who said that?" but it comes out in a nervous stutter. You think,"Damn cold air". You feel even more vulnerable now because you know that you sounded like that. But you can make out the figure standing on the bench off to the right of the sidewalk. That girl really has no business on this dark street, on this cold night, on that lonely bench. The only thing you can see clearly are her eyes staring wide open directly into yours.
You realize that you stopped and quickly decide to get moving again. After two steps you feel like the situation is over and the rest of the walk will finish soon enough.
But she stops you again. You didn't hear what she said over the shuffling of your feet, and maybe she was asking for help. Poor little girl. You turn back to her and again she is staring directly at you as if you rotated her when you moved like there is some invisible connection between you. You get impatient looking at her for a brief moment, so you ask kindly, "What was that, miss?"
She stares blankly for a moment. Then just before it feels right to start moving again she says something. She could just be retarded, but it seems that she either needs your help, or the psychiatric kind. Her tone is even more eerie than anything else about a girl standing on a bench on a dark street staring at you. She sounds so helpless, so confused, much too calm, and speaks way too slowly. Like a cat moaning, or a person looking for their pet and yelling their name but making it come out like the question,"Where are you." This shadowy sad young girl is staring directly into you without being able to see.
In that moment before you decide to turn and leave again she subtly howls a long drawn out,
"Now."
Current Mood: 
anxiousCurrent Music: Tom Waits' "Cold Cold Ground" 
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