Testing the Horizon

Sickly grey light filtered through his age toughened eyelids. A twitch of the leg, his hand trailed groggily through the accumulated filth around his bedroll. He awoke beset by an onslaught of coughs, deep throated and ragged. His sagging frame shuddered as though made of paper mâché, each cough threatening to send cracks across the brittle surface. As the coughs subsided he rolled onto his side, his lids fluttered weakly as though fighting the imminent awareness. Finally, his eyes slid open. At first the pale orbs with their milky blue halos wandered. Slowly his eyes focused, gained relative clarity. With a ragged sigh the vagabond swiped at his eyes and cheeks with the sleeve of his jacket. The threadbare material did as much to redistribute the greasy sweat as to remove it. He heaved himself up, and doubled over again as he was overcome by the wracking coughs. They seemed to be getting worse. He could hardly remember a time without these fits. It didn’t matter, nothing mattered. Today he had a purpose.

By the time the sun had fully risen over the forest of steel and glass that he and eight million others called home, he had shuffled his way past the schoolyard and was well on his way. Any other morning, he would have simply drawn his tattered blankets up over his face and slid back into his dreamless slumber until the sun was well and up. Today however, for the first time in a very long time, he felt purpose. The sun was a swollen fury, blinding as its image was refracted and reflected from a thousand silvered surfaces; yet still it held no warmth, no comfort for him or the other early risers striding briskly through the streets, bundled against the biting wind. He shuffled on.

Unconsciously he worried his lip with his teeth, wondering if he had stuffed the blanket far enough back against the wooden slats; wondering if he might be sleeping without a blanket tonight. The shop-owner had fought the inevitable at first; had fought this vagabond and all the others huddled in among the boxes and bins to block the chill of the bitter winds. But in the end there was not much to be done about it, he and the army of fellow forgotten had been there long before. Back when the old brick building had been a decaying bookstore, when the original owner had decided that the crumbling façade was no longer charming and quaint, back when it had been converted to a cheap grease and spit diner, until it had been bought up by some slick young realtor who had covered the decaying frame with slick steel lines and cold glass curves. It was their home long before, no matter its new uptown appearance it would be home to the rest of them long after. Not him though, today he had a purpose, today he had a plan.

He seemingly dozed, lost in his own thoughts and memories as he shambled along the windswept streets, a familiar habit, a shield against the disdainful looks and nervous glances from all the real-folk. His path up the walk could be traced by the ripples of pedestrians stepping aside and glaring with anger. Hatred for reminding these people that their tidy little worlds of numbers and steel, paper-bills and plastic bodies, was no further away than a step off of their clean smooth side-walks into the choked and chaotic gutters of the city. As always he worked his way up towards the mission center before crossing the city, it had been nearly ten years since he had crossed anywhere below. Not since he saw her… down in the maze of seemingly suburban sprawl tucked into the lap between the skyscrapers and the industrial works. It would be time for those thoughts soon enough, he shook the train of thought loose and raked his stained fingers through the long lank locks of coal-silver hair, muttering under his breath as the nearest passerby’s shied further away.

Four blocks up, past the vine-covered walls and faded graffiti of Mission Center he started to work his way into an older neighborhood. He felt most comfortable here, in the fading shambles on the borders between industrial desolation and the new sterile vision of modern city living. But he wasn’t here to feel comforted, he was owed, and it was time to collect his due. He shuffled into the rounded cul-de-sac past the rusted shells of gutted vehicles left to rot out on the street. The quad-level apartment complex seemingly loomed in the shadows cast upon the whole of the neighborhood by the westbound arm of the interstate crossing overhead. Broken out windows leered like cruel eye-sockets empty of their orbs, the few remaining residents covered the ruins with splintered boards or billowing sheets of plastic, hoping to recapture some sense of dignity, some mirror of the dream still burning inside of them to be like the real-folk uptown.

He climbed slowly yet determinedly up the sagging stairwell up to the third level of the last building along the row. He hated these stairs, in a way the resident whores leaning against the flaking paint and smoking, or sitting with their arms and legs dangling lazily through the bars had charted his long decay. In the early years, back when he had influence down in these parts they had clung to him, practically begging him, they would whisper in his ear and press their soft rounded flesh against him as he made his way up to Saul’s door. Now most of them shuffled back into recessed doorways keeping a wary eye on him, as though he were some broken dog, rabid and unpredictable. He kept his head down and knocked on Saul’s door. It remained silent until the door slid quietly open, just enough to admit him. As he stepped past the hulking frame of the door-guard the heavy door swung just as quietly and swiftly shut, the only sound being the tinkling of metal on metal as the locks were slid into place. He didn’t recognize the brute who had just admitted him; probably some poor fool from farther uptown who thought his size could lend him enough credit down here to make some quick cash. It didn’t matter, Saul always rotated his men out, in Saul’s line of work it was only a matter of time until these men became shifty thieves, fiends just like those they were hired to keep out. As the brute settled back against the wall, the vagabond considered him briefly. “Saul must be getting sloppy”, the vagabond thought to himself. The brutes eyes were dull, focused more inward than on his recent arrival, his teeth were leering crooked and rotten out of stained lips. This one wasn’t just into it… he was twitching from it right there and then. A shame, Saul wouldn’t last long this way. No matter, he had one last task here and it would be done.

“Tomas?”… It echoed again and again in his head as he shuffled back into the slums of the city, the old neighborhood receding away in the distance. “Tomas?”… it was the only word that had been spoken in that worn third floor apartment. It haunted him; he had wiped all the blood off on the carpet. He had left the knife sticking out of the brutes throat, under vacant eyes and above a fanning river of blood. He couldn’t forget their eyes. The look of recognition in Saul’s as he shook himself out of his drug-induced stupor. “Getting sloppy Saul… first the brute, then you… you never used the product before; that was your first rule”, the vagabond thought to himself. But then… then the contortions of confusion and pain crawling across Saul’s features as the blade sunk home. “Tomas?” … It was much the same with the door-guard. The brute leered at him quizzically at first as he held out the stack of bills, he had smiled and the brute had smiled back, baring that awful maw. As the brute reached for the stack of cash the vagabonds other hand had come around… it was done. He wished it hadn’t been necessary but Saul had owed him… eleven years in prison, for a crime he hadn’t committed. He knew that Saul would never have paid up, maybe back in the old days but certainly not since Saul’s new habits. No matter, just a few more things to tend to and it would all be over.

His step had firmed up; his back had straightened out a little. He had never thought he would make it this far. He felt hopeful, for the first time in so long. His shuffling step became purposeful strides, making headway down the avenue. He knew exactly where to go, he knew exactly what he needed. All there was to it now was to see whether or not they would have him removed on sight, before he could show them his stack of recently acquired bills. Pain!... fire in his lungs… he crashed to his knees his hands planted on the pavement as the coughs tore at his throat. When the fit had subsided, he rose weakly back to his feet. He hardly glanced at the blood speckled on the paved square as he wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. He picked up his pace and tried to forget the episode. He rounded the corner, and hesitated at the sight of the large glass double-doors. He turned to the mirrored window surface and combed his unkempt hair out as much as possible with his fingers, straightened his jacket and attempted to rub the smudges out of the coarse material. He gave up with a sigh after a few nervous minutes and stepped again towards the door.

Back out on the street, he clutched his hand nervously against his breast pocket, inside was a small prize, a dream that he had lost long ago, one that he intended to pass on. He picked up his feet and half jogged, half shambled down the darkening streets. It couldn’t be this late already could it? The afternoon shadows stretched lazily across the avenues, looming ominously like the hand of time itself, reaching out to him. He scrambled down the streets and alleys, starting from the Mission Center slowly working his way into the suburban sprawl. He had to stop a few times, looking about wildly, his hand trembling, closing convulsively on his breast pocket and the tiny glimmer of hope tucked inside. Was he lost? He couldn’t be sure; he had avoided this section of the city for so long that it was no longer familiar to him. He just had to hope, to believe that even after thirty odd years of absence that the memory of his last true home could not have been erased. He shambled on, feverishly darting his eyes about and locking his fist ever tighter around his pocket. There!... here it was!... the one with the tall spreading oak, one branch sagging just low enough for a small child to jump up and catch hold of. The paint had been changed, the patio looked different, as though it had been rebuilt; but there was no doubt in his mind.

As he crept up towards the home he paused and plucked a white rose from the neighbor’s garden. His trembling fingers reached into his breast pocket and plucked it out, the ring. It glittered madly in the moonlight, the clean smooth lines of the platinum band, and the gem… dark and brooding... it glittered, red as rage. He threaded the ring along the stem of the rose until it was tucked underneath the pale white petals, cradled in the curve of a dark thorn. One last time he looked at it, he swore he could see clouds floating lazily through the gem. He couldn’t be sure though, not anymore, his head was filled with clouds, just like the ones now circling him, closing in. He pressed the silken petals against his lips and gently laid the rose down against the door, as carefully as a father tucking in his child. It was done, tears coursed hot down his cheeks as he stumbled back through the dark alleys. He could taste the blood hot and bitter in the back of his throat… no matter… it was done.

Sickly grey light filtered through his age toughened eyelids. A twitch of the leg, his hand trailed groggily through the accumulated filth around his bedroll as the paramedics lifted his body up onto the stretcher. They drew a sheet over him before tucking him into the back of the ambulance. A clean sheet, white and blameless, it blotted out his body, frail and broken… dead and cold. It blotted out his sins and regrets, soft and pure it covered him and he was gone. It was done.

-By: Coalesce Lacuna