In this city, greed is the word, and the word was always greed. The rats waltz in the skyscrapers, while the men claw for scraps in the gutters. The incompetent voracious swine that serve as substitutes for the far more capable and malevolent bosses that once carved out the now great city from the blood and sweat of the weak, slouch in their crumbling towers and suck the marrow from the few surviving honest men. Those left are fed lies and false promises of greatness and equality and the ever elusive fair share, and as they feast on their half truths and hyperbolic ravings they turn aside venerability and honesty in a bloated rage. Hoping, wishing, dreaming of a day when the lies will become true, when the matchstick supports propping up their lives will turn to adamant, and the pennies that are thrown at their groveling faces as pay turn to silver, and each survivor will buy a grand house and find a beautiful wife and have many strong, healthy children, and the days of groveling will be looked back on with snide frivolity as "those days".
Because truth has been voted out of this vile putrescent trench of a rotting corpse of a husk of a city. And no one is asking for a recount. I’m far beyond trying to persuade them.
I walk into the decrepit ruin that houses my office. It’s a place of piercing eyes analyzing your every move from cracks in the dry wall, a place of deadly silence and judging porcelain faces. My kind of place. It keeps me on my toes.
I walk by a woman of twenty in a tacky shirt. She stares right through me and passes without a word. I glimpse a man through a half open door, his head clasped in his hands and a look of dread dripping down his bony face. As I turn to the stairwell I can just make out the features of an old woman lying in the corner, a cigarette casting a faint orange glow against her soft worn face, her pale unseeing eyes bobbing backwards in her skull.
I slither through the door to my office, slamming it shut as I enter. I toss my shabby brown hat onto a secretary’s desk. My secretary quit yesterday and I haven’t been assed to find some new giggling slut to look pretty and take phone calls that never come.
I don’t bother taking my coat off. I slump into my chair and thoughtlessly rip a cigarette out of my left pocket. As I sit in the darkness and suck on my deathstick, I begin to think. I begin thinking about all the lost children, and all the false prophets, and all the shilled losers grappling with insurmountable debts simply because they were guilty of the crimes of trust and frailty, and in these moments of stillness and doubt, I feel the blood flowing through my veins, and I hear the mortar and the bricks as they begin to crack, and at that moment I realize in horror that I am completely and incontrovertibly alone. Alone.
The phone rings. I pick it up. “Warren Netche, private investigator.” I spit through my teeth with practiced courtesy. “What do you need to know?”
I press the receiver. Wrong number.
I really enjoyed that... great setup.
Reminds me of some noir setting, like the art deco style in Batman the animated Series. Sounds like Gotham too. I liked it.
Very good, surprised me. You're a little choppy when you get to the first person stuff though, too much "I this" and "I that".
I loved the imagery. Great story.
Thanks for the feedback. I didn't notice that before Ryan, but looking back I suppose you're right. I'll pay attention to that in the next thing I write.
damn your a good writer. (oh btw I accidentally rated you late instead of artistic sorry!)
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
