In most parts of the world, night brings a welcome darkness. The city, however, is denied this pleasure for the luxury of street lights and store front displays. Personal gain prowls during the late hours, leaving bleeding or broken hearts behind it. Lost opportunities and meaningless lives pool in the streets and flow over into the sewers.

Raisa walked these streets unaccompanied by chaperone. Defenseless to the night, she approached a familiar corner. Many of her associates had already gathered there. And so another night's work begins. Men come and go, occasionally women as well. Sometimes Raisa goes with them, sometimes the others do. It doesn't matter. Raisa ends every night in tears on the curb, regardless of the money she makes. The other girls mock and criticize. They tell her after a year and half she should be stronger, harder. Raisa crawls a little farther away from the pack. Not wise from a safety standpoint, but better for the mental health. She holds her knees to her chest and tries to ignore the aching under her tight skirt.

Eventually tears subside to hiccups and hiccups to sighs. Raisa feels prepared to face the cold darkness once again. She stands and returns to the few girls still standing on the corner. Two remain, waiting for Raisa so they can walk home together. If a covered alley next to a kitchen can be called home. The girls are grateful it's warm and dry. Shivering Raisa plans to unbury her long pants. No one steals things from under the earth.

They curl up against each other in the alley as kittens would. The wind blows and they shiver in unison. Some old newspapers are brought to them by the wind and quickly they wrap the discarded paper around themselves. It's a meager effort to block out the wind, but the best they can do. At long last all three girls fall asleep.

Raisa wakes up alone. Her stomach reminds her that she hasn't eaten for a while. She digs out her pants, literally. She puts them on under her skirt. They stick to her legs like she was born with them on. Checking to be sure she still has her pay from last night she heads out to find breakfast. A cheap gas station supplies her with yogurt and a bagel.

Stepping back out to the street, she glanced around at her surroundings. Raisa could never admit to herself that this was where she belonged. She knew she deserved better than boarded up windows and paper-blankets. Unfortunately, no one else did. She was the bottom of every joke. Hoping for something more always made for a good laugh among her kind. And when they weren't laughing they were scolding. Trying to keep Raisa in her place, at the bottom dregs of humanity.

Despite her colleagues' opinions, she was determined to make more of her life than prostitution. She avoided drugs, tried to be safe about men she allowed in her, and never worked when she thought she could get pregnant. None-the-less, life wasn't improving. She was about to give up on her anti-drug campaign. Sometimes, it just wasn't worth it. She wanted to lose reality, lose everything. On particularly bad days, when no men wanted her or her "friends" reminded her what a waste of life she was, she wondered why she even bothered with existence. Razors where cheap and life was hard. The two added up to a pleasant possibility.

Then she reminded herself of her future. That distant fantasy that dance gracefully across her imagination. She lived in this land when no one else was around, lost in thoughts of motherhood and an office. This was Raisa's life.