Whistle // [Tom]

Whistle // [Tom] Oct 16, 2018 21:08:02 GMT -5

Post by sbeeg on Oct 16, 2018 21:08:02 GMT -5

Charlotte Blair
Roxanne
You don't have to put on the red light
Roxanne
You don't have to put on the red light

A chill has settled over the district and Charlotte Blair still braves the sidewalks. Her legs are covered by a thin layer of nylon, a loose sweater pulled tight around her frame only to be flung open and shrugged off her shoulders as soon as a John walked by. The last few months had been quite a ride for the girl. She turned eighteen to tepid applause. The other girls down the hall had pitched in and bought her one of the ridiculously extravagant cupcakes set on display in the bakery window. After carrying a lonely heart for so long, the frosting was the sweetest thing she'd ever tasted.

She'd spent the day in her room, looking onto the street from her window. She savored the treat all day, her fingers mindlessly fidgeting with the ring hanging on a chain around her neck. After weeks working well into the night and being the first on the streets, she'd managed to make rent without selling Clyde's final gift.

Final. She knew he was never coming back. It used to hurt to think about, but now it has settled into calm acceptance. Charlotte Blair had to move on from the talkative pickpocket. She had to work.

She had to live.

Scuffed heels scrapped against the concrete as she paced up and down the familiar block in the warehouse district. It was almost the end of a late shift and Charlotte was determined to catch at least one working on their way home.

Blue eyes caught the corner she used to stand on nightly, the corner she met Clyde.

Needless to say, she doesn't like camping there anymore. Still the girl couldn't keep her mind from wandering. Would Clyde be proud of her now? She was stable, firmly on her feet. She'd given away her last bottle of whiskey and weathered the horrible first weeks without it. Life began to slip into focus. It hurt more, for sure. Every slammed door sent a roar of thunder through her head, every lamp was one of the searchlights on top of the Detention Center. However, she felt more too. The kindness of her sisters in the trade. The cool autumn breeze ghosting over her skin like a kiss.

Her fingers twitched, yearning for the cigarettes she had left back in her room. Yet another vice she was attempting to kick, albeit with more difficulty.

Clyde was such an enigma to her. He was a thief, but carried himself like a king. Charlotte shoved the thought away. Her mind was drifting to him too often.

She focused on what was around her- the rusted metal sides of the warehouse behind her, the concrete sidewalk beneath her. Leaves stuck to the drains, cigarette butts littered the ground from her previous nights at work.

A whistle hit the air, the shuddering of the warehouse doors and then the flood of workers marching home. Charlotte stepped into a halo of a streetlamp to be better seen in the evening light. Her thick sweater feel to around her shoulders, the buttons falling open to expose the tight dress underneath it. She stretched her painted lips into a practiced smile.

Her fingers fiddled with her long blonde hair, unable to still their movement. She needed focus. Charlotte hoped someone stopped beside her just so she could focus on something beside the itching within her skin.

She let out a long whistle, watching as heads turned her direction.

Come on she thought, pay me a visit.

**Lyrics Roxanne by The Police

Whistle // [Tom] Nov 3, 2018 6:47:33 GMT -5

Post by Tom on Nov 3, 2018 6:47:33 GMT -5

"Says" Thinks "Hears" Writing

Bruises linger on his skin with purple hues. No longer able to be hidden from the employees of his mother's warehouse job. They linger over his cheek that resembles the red of his father's hand, but no one says anything. They don't question his eye that stings with purple surrounding the edges, healing decently well from the last time he checked. Fingers just continue to package and move things from place to place. A job that involved labor and long hours, just like his mother used to do. Years spent of his mother working and taking care of him. Wilkie, her father's name and now her son, but he can't remember the way she used to look at him anymore. He can't remember the way that her voice comforted him. All he could feel was the guilt of his father and the violence of his drunken father. Like the purple bruises on his skin, he's the center of everything bad.

That night he breaks twelve vials of morphling. Feet slipping along the cold cemented ground as the vials just shatter and his boss shouts at him. Wicked words in his ears and Wilkie's breaking down again silently. They continue working in lines of eight, taking vials to boxes and packaging them away. Celia, his mother's friend, gives him a frown as she continues packaging across the line from him. No comment about the abuse. A spotlight shoved in front of his skin, but she doesn't do anything but pity him. Pity is all he ever gets anymore and he's tired of the life he lives. Hatred in his skin as he can taste the gum that he chews with no flavor, just a bland rubber in between his lips now. It's not his fault that his mother died. It's not his fault that his father beats him. It's not his fault that Celia doesn't care enough to speak out against his father. It's tiring living like this.

Once the warehouse grows quieter and quieter, his shift grows into overtime as the lack of care for him becomes prominent once more. Instead of following directions, he screams at someone next to him. He screams profanities, until his lungs hurt and Celia leads him away for the night. She watches him as he stands on the outside of the warehouse where they work. His boss tells him to take the day off tomorrow, despite him needing the money, but it takes over. The stress, the worry, the tiredness, and everything else that he carries. Celia's voice is in his ears as he shoves his hands into his jacket's pockets. Treatment like a kid coming from her lips as he waits.

"Wait for me by the corner, we need to talk."

Talk. Like that isn't something they haven't done before. Talk about his mother. Talk about his father. Talk about work and how he needs to chill once more, but how's a boy to chill when he lives the life of a parent at a young age. At eleven years old, he worked like his father was supposed to. Instead of listening to Celia anymore, he shoves past her and moves down the street. Silently in the dark as a whistle for other warehouses breaks the blackness of the evening.

The corner is occupied by a blonde, with an outfit that must be too cold for the autumn air. Wilkie's seen the types that wait on corners for men exhausted, but too friendly to give up an opportunity to spend their wages on the likes of an escape for an evening. Eyes glance down as he steps closer, ignoring the blonde who was around his age. Sex wasn't what he was here for, Celia told him to wait there for her to discuss the warehouse. Silence as he waits patiently, ignoring the blonde with a lack of care in his eyes. Bouncing ever so slightly on the balls of his feet as he chances a glance at her and then back to the crowds moving home for the evening. Arms in his pockets as he leans to his side away from her.

No use in talking to a stranger, silence was his escape.

So he stays silent, letting the blackness of the evening take over.

Wilkie was fine.