Long time//Short time [Rade]
Dec 8, 2012 19:43:20 GMT -5
Post by sbeeg on Dec 8, 2012 19:43:20 GMT -5
Long time short time
Any time, my dear
Cost a little extra if you want to take all year
Time becomes simply incapable of tracking. I lost it, the hours slipping through my fingers until I couldn't tell whether it had been a day or a week. My world was shrunk down, my perspective down to just four metal walls. I managed to keep myself occupied torturing my goody two shoes cell mate but one day two Keepers came in and dragged her out. She never came back after that and I don't know what scared me more- the fact that she was probably dead, or that I didn't care. While alone in the metal prison, you become in touch with yourself. Lying on the metal shelf that was a poor excuse for a bed, I'd stare up at the ceiling and run through all seventeen years of my life in my head from my earliest memory to my latest.
I saw every single face- every half shaved jaw, every eye bloodshot with drink and every rotten tooth hovering over me. Every single man that had ever paid me under a dim streetlamp and led me into some apartment. I counted them up, every gruff voice and calloused hand, and came up with sixty five give or take a few. Some nights stand out in my mind than others. The week where the only business I got was a gawky twenty something that smelled like tuna, that was fresh in my brain. Other nights, I can only remember bits and pieces. A patched up over coat. Green eyes. Just parts.
I remember sitting in the hallway outside my mother's room at the brothel I grew up in. There was a long moth eaten rug rolled out over the wood and I would run my fingers through it, ignoring the world around me.
My mother sending me out to buy her liquor.
The day there was heavy snow and I played it in until dark and caught a cold.
The night the madame kicked my mother out for not being pretty enough to keep business flowing. She had given me a slip of paper with the address and her name in case I wanted to come back and work for her when I was older. I threw it away.
Sitting in our drafty one room apartment while my mother made a deal with a skinny, grubby looking man who kept glancing over at me. I was fourteen at the time, sold for two bottles of spirits and some morphling.
Leaving my mother to her own slow death.
After that everything starts to melt together, the nights become so similar that I can't differentiate them. The weeks heading up to being arrested are clearer though. Meeting a young boy named Clyde who turned out to be something much different. Will I ever see that boy again? I hoped so, but never promised myself I would. That would be too cruel of a thing to do knowing I may die in this metal compound. The last night I worked slips into my head too- the Peacekeeper. Helmsby. He's probably the one who turned me in, the filthy snake. Threw me in here and did not even have the courtesy to come and visit.
In that drab cell, all alone with my thoughts I had come to terms with it all. With my miserable little life, with all the men who's money I had accepted. Everything. Death seemed so tangible then, but it never came.
A Peacekeeper I had never seen before stepped into my room, ordering me to my feet. It was the time, I knew it had to be. She'd lead me to some other identical room and send a bullet through my skull. I could see the whole thing in my mind, could feel it. However, the woman did not take me to my final resting place, but slipped handcuffs over my wrists and led me through multiple pairs of double doors until the sun hit my face. I hadn't seen outside since they threw me in the DC. It was blinding and my feet stumbled over the concrete path. Looking down at my hands locked together in front of me, I could see the bones under the pale skin that, in this harsh lighting, looking almost transparent.
We walked through a locked gate and then marched up to train stopped on the tracks. I could hear the engine rumbling further down the tracks. "Up," the woman ordered and followed without a qualm, amazed by this world I used to live in. "Arm, please," the woman said, her voice sharp and clinical. I brought my arms forward and she shoved a needle into the bend of elbow. I did not even have the strength to ask what it was before my vision blurred and the whole world went black.~*~
I finally woke up as the train was pulling to a stop. The Keepers must have perfected the dosage of that stuff because right as the whole thing shuddered to a halt, a man grabbed my arm and hauled me to the door of the car. There it was- District Six. Just as the sun was setting to. My city was just beginning to set up in the streets and alleys. The man shoved a key in my cuffs, yanking them from my wrists.
And just like that I was discharged from the Detention Center and back on the streets. The man rambled on about official business, second offenses and other legal talk but I wasn't listening. It was not until he said the words "You're free to go" did I actually hear their meaning. Then we parted ways, the Keeper to the train and me to my streets.
I did not have a clue as to where to go. Everything looked foreign to me, too colorful and spaced out. My legs could barely stand my weight and after stumbling down a few blocks I had to sit on the side walk and lean against some grungy looking store front.
That's where I am now. This is not some weird dream I am having. I am home and I'm alive. Well, not home. I'm just wandering around right now, tryin' to figure out if I know any of the people walking passed me or if I live anywhere near the streets I'm on. It helps that is it nighttime. Even before I was arrested, sunlight seemed to distort everything. There is just one question I cannot answer.
What the hell do I do now?
