Step. By. Step.

There was nothing quite like the feeling of walls closing in. On either side of her, the buildings are getting closer as she walks faster, moccasins barely scraping the ground. She refuses to run. But she needs to get out.

Is the street getting smaller?

It feels as if the buildings are on either side of her, cramming her in to walk in the small space of sidewalk. Everything feels as if it’s getting closer together, the horizon only a safe distance away but yet one safe distance too far. She clutches her bag tightly as she walks, slowing down slightly. The walls aren’t moving anymore. She breathes freely.

Or maybe it’s just me.

She could never understand how people could sleep at night. These city streets were always here for walking, for viewing. And yet it seemed, at the light of day, they would come, hundreds of them, thousands of them to wander the streets and drive their cars and crowd the subways and talk on their cell phones about pointless antics. But at night, that world would fade and she would walk the streets.

She breathes. There is nothing quite like the sweet stench of pollution. There is nothing quite like the horns honking, the pigeons cooing, the people screaming at each other from their apartment windows. These treasures that are drowned out during the day, complained about by everyone else.

I am not like everyone else.

She continues to walk. There are some people walking about these streets at this time of night, no, morning...but these people who are so far from a state of perfection that they live in a surreal state of mind, the kind of people who know no consequence. These were the people to watch out for, but they were everywhere so there was really no point in watching out at all. There was just the knowing, knowing that looking after herself was more important than looking out for everyone else.

I’ll make my own enemy.

She stops at a corner. The streets seem nearly deserted, except for a lone vendor a ways down the street. The parked cars. The lights. The random group of young boys, probably dealers or users, wandering, just wandering, looking for a place to call home. She smiles. They don’t know yet. They don’t know the truth. They haven’t yet faced the cold, hard reality. They have nothing and they don’t even know it yet.

Foolish children. There is no such thing as home.

And she continues to walk. She has her jacket draped over her shoulders, she has her bag. She has her moving legs. She has everything she needs to keep going. Wherever that is. Because there have been too many nights wandering. The streets, after such a long time, begin to look the same. And yet she knows people who have wandered longer. The men and women driven to insanity. The hungry ones. But she will never be hungry as long as she will never be full. She can never be tired as long as she can never be awake. She can never be lonely as long as she is completely alone. And she knows this and keeps walking.

Step. Step. Step.

She passes the lone street vendor. Who would be out selling pretzels so late at night? And then she sees the boys off in the distance, staring the vendor down and she knows, she knows it’s just a cover and that it’s just lie, that the little cart along the sidewalk was the home of too many crimes to count. The vendor eyes her as she walks by, noticing her worn shoes scratching the pavement, her parka slung across her shoulders with her swinging arms not even bothering to conceal themselves in the jacket’s sleeves.

And as she walks past the vendor and his cart, in a sudden movement, she lunges herself towards the cart and grabs the glass case on top of the cart, pulling it open and grabbing a cold, stale pretzel from the confines of the glass compartment. And in one other, sudden movement, the pretzel is in her hand as she continues walking, everything the same as it was seconds before with the exception of the vendor, not entirely sure of what had just happened, but suspicious in the least.

He eyes the pretzel in the girl’s hand, waves his hands in the air in utter dismay. “Hey, you’re gonna have to pay for that.”

And she turns around, gives him the coldest look. And somehow, despite her scrawny frame in contrast to his heavy build, the simple fact that she was a young girl while he was an older man, the innocence of her complexion versus his soulful, beaten skin; the vendor finds no choice but to obey the girl’s deathly glare, bowing his head to her demand.

“Go on, take it. Them’s nasty stuff anyways. But ‘cha can do better than that; git yoself some real food. Little thing like you shouldn’t be walking these streets alone so late.”

She is unsure whether she ignores him or was listening; either way, his voice is not soothing as the sound waves break the peaceful barrier of the night, carrying themselves around her, disturbing her peace. She bites the pretzel. Well, it was certainly no classy meal, but whatever it took to survive was fine with her. And she chews and continues to walk.

She is closing in on another intersection, crossroads somewhat less quiet than the streets that she’d already passed. She can see the blinking traffic lights in the distance, noticing the parked cars along the sidewalk for the first time. The automobiles were lined along the streets, littered with an excuse to leave, to escape, serving as a temporary excuse for appearing at the right place at the right time. For those people who thought they could know better, it was even a little shelter, a place for them to go when there was no place else to go. God, how she hates them, especially at this hour as they whisper words of loneliness and unfriendliness as she passes them on this quiet, city street.

And she is nearing the intersection. The light is blinking red, “Do Not Walk” visible in neon against the hard exterior of the traffic sign, but she ignores it. She knows better than to obey the signs of humanity, knows better than to think that such a creation would affect her fate. On nights like tonight, she knows that every second counts. And she keeps walking.

And then, she hears the noise before she sees the lights shining into an eye, feeling the heat of the moving vehicle closing in on her small frame as it came nearer and nearer. At the same time, she did not hesitate, continuing her steady walk towards her destination on the other side of the road. Her head does not turn, her mouth does not move. And much to her appreciation, the car chooses to stop only inches away from her knees as she continues to walk the lone street.

“Hey, watch where you’re going!” the driver yells from his open window, sticking his head out in dismay. She appreciates the concern but doesn’t turn to look at him, watching slightly from her peripheral vision in slight amusement. “What are you, deaf?!” the man yells in a thick, native accent. She refuses to answer but out of the corner of her eye, she hears the man scowl, and he continues to drive once she clears herself from the car’s path.

Where is time going?

She doesn’t know how long she’s been walking, whether it’s been hours, days, weeks, months, even years. She doesn’t know and she finds herself unable to care. She continues forward, her steady step never losing beat, never backing down on it’s rhythm of her feet hitting the concrete ground.

Step. By. Step.

It is not long before she finds herself at the end of the road. There is no place else to go because the road has ended, the sidewalk only with a doomed future, blockaded by buildings and forced to never continue. She sees this, stares into the sky, which is clouding over slightly with a few, dim stars visible next to the glowing crescent of light that hovered over her head; this light, the home to a face, a man in a smiling fit of glory who lived amongst the stars.

The end of the road is here and she knows it. There is no place to go except up. But that was not an option, not on a night like tonight and not on any other night.

And so, she turns around on her heels into the opposite direction, and continues to walk.