Walk

Trigger warning, Death and mentions of violence.

Creeping dusk lays itself across the tips of buildings. A young man walks a path of amber bound in outer wear to ensure that the crisp fall air cannot reach him. Trudging through fallen leaves with the dying glow of the sun as his guiding light. Streetlights have yet to begin their flicker of life. Missing person posters decorate every poll. Layers upon layers of faces deposited sediment of loss that fades into the background of modernity.

           Best not to think too much on those now gone.

He keeps walking. The day will soon be over. Being out with only the light of man as protection is a gamble most no longer take. The young man’s pace is an even cantor. He strides beneath the eyes of man’s monoliths, purpose behind each step, each crunch of a leaf heralding the arrival of intent.

Stopping at the mouth of a darkened alley, the young man peers into the abyss. A gorge of shadow. Haloed by the last dregs of sun, he stands listening. The alley lays still beckoning the young man to step into its embrace. To disturb the stillness and discover what lays within its depths. Temptation to break the surface of the lake and find treasure within.

“help.”

The same whisper from before, no longer carried on the breeze but echoing from the alley. As the young man stands, looking within the still dark, he sees it. The creator of the lure. An individual hidden in the dark, buried under trash. Able to be picked out by the glimmer of something shiny. The glimmer of a fish scale, the shine of life calls from the depths. “please help me.” The cry is weak, fading, but holds an underlying sense of urgency. As though should the young man hesitate, he will have missed the opportunity.

The most recent missing person poster is picked up in the wind. Flapping around, bestowing the world its best impression of a pinned dying fish.

The young man makes his decision; stepping from light into endless dark. Stillness disturbed, a rock thrown into the lake, footsteps, ripples of his existence. The dark is cold, bundled as he is the chill circles him. Seeking cracks in his armor, searching for places to sink its skeletal fingers. Steps announced no longer by fallen leaves but by discarded bottles. He approaches the crumpled figure, indiscernible, this deep in the abyss his form merges with the dark. He waits, ripples fading into stillness. His fish does not swim or flop about but sit. It’s breath shallow, stuttering.

Standing before his fish, the young man realizes it does not have scales, instead the glimmer of blood is what has drawn the young man. Blood that flows and shimmers, life, worth more to the fish than gold.

The fish, the crumpled figure, is that of an old man. An old man, weathered from time, age lies upon him, a blanket of perseverance. As he sits with his dwindling time, he calls once more, with hope now accompanying urgency.

“Who, who goes there? P-please help me. They came out of nowhere. They took everything. Please. plea--se .”

The old man’s cry reaches out to the young sentinel. Does he see him, the one who has heard his plea? Does he know what has come, lured by the shine of life and cry of help. Does the fish know what swims in the dark?

Eyes search the dark, the old man knows someone is there. Someone has come to help, to save him. He cannot see though, the depths of the alley have robbed him of sight. The old man thinks though that he caught a glimmer of life. The reflection of light upon eyes. He goes to cry out once more. He cannot, a wet grasp is all that his throat can muster.

Speech evades him, his throat constricting, he can call out no more. Breathing becomes his focus, he wonders has it always been this hard. Has the world always been this cold? His body yearns for the comfort of warmth. He thinks he feels it, a stream of heat, it leaves him as fast as it comes.

Cold and tacky, the stream while unending does not retain its warmth. Leaving the old man yearning for the source. Where does this warmth start? If only he could find it, swim in it. Maybe he thinks the one who has come to him can help him find this place. The place where he can breathe without thought, where he can swim once more in never ending warmth.

The young man stands; the alley is filled with the sound of creeping death. Labored breathing echoes off graffiti covered walls. The world that lays beyond remains unknowing, the light unconcerned by the dark’s happenings.

Squatting down the two men’s eyes become level, searching, if only the dark allowed them connection. Less than a foot of distance between the two but worlds apart. Stillness attempts to sweep in, wrapping itself around the two, trying to draw them further apart.

Undeterred the young man reaches out his gloved hand, hesitant, and rests it along the elder’s jaw. He caresses the dying man, rubbing his thumb along his cheek. Offering some comfort to a man who warmth is fleeing. At the touch the old man lets out a watery gasp and tries to lift his hand. He wishes to return the favor, to grasp the one who has answered his call. He cannot. All the old man can do is rest his head into the hand of a stranger.

They stay like that, for a minute, for an hour, maybe only a few seconds. Two strangers in the dark, one seeking comfort, the other providing. The old man’s breathing becomes as sparse as it is wet. Blood once a stream, now a trickle, time once infinite has a set end.

“Salvation.”

The young man speaks only this, no other word. He has no grand speech, no gentle words of kindness to easy the old man’s passing. Just a single word, an answer, a statement. Salvation, the last thing the old man hears, the last thing the old man thinks. He draws his final breath under the watchful eyes of darkness, cradled in the hand of the unknown.

The young man walks out onto the sidewalk, the path no longer amber. The posters no longer flapping about, instead they lay still. The fate of all pinned fish. Streetlights have been revived, creating small havens for night travelers. Faces of the lost, one’s temporary companions should one choose to stop. He keeps walking.

Days go by, more leaves have fallen coating the pavement in an explosion of autumn. The young man walks through the mass. Kicking up colors as he goes. Walking past the once more sleeping streetlights, a new face watches him from the poll. An old man calls out from the layers of departed.