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Fri 26 Dec, 2008 08:59 am
When travelling around, I often like to avoid the dark, hidden corners and recesses tucked within the labyrinth of buildings and streets. At times I find myself in locations that are far better suited for a hood rat, homeless man, or drug addict that has a reason to stay out of the public eye, but no matter what my best judgment thinks, I find myself in these locales. Whether to save a little energy by cutting through a dark, damp alley, or taking a journey into a neighborhood that appears safe during the day, my rationalizations seem rather trivial. People tend to execute illegal activities in the darkness of the shadows finding refuge from the eyes of the city. Drug dealers, gang bangers, people selling themselves for a fix, methheads, crackheads, thieves, and dirty police. Just thinking about the dirty secrets of modern society causes my body to tremble.
On my way home from work, I decided to take a different route home through downtown. By cutting through a series of parking lots, and an alley before Mitchell Avenue, I knew I could drastically reduce my walk home, but that alley remained the only thing causing me to hesitate. The desolation of the area offered little security from the random acts of violence that dominate the nightly news. The shortcut slashes six blocks of my journey I thought, thus, rationalizing my new found courage. The locale looked empty and devoid of life forms, but that could be a lure from the creatures of the dark labyrinth beckoning me in. I knew I shouldn't trust my instincts, but sometimes life decides for us to take a chance and live little.
I walked cautiously down the street trying to display a strong sense of confidence and belonging that could mask my fear from potential thieves or attackers. I knew that I had to act as if I belonged in this alley to avoid attracting any creatures of the night, but I doubted my abilities to deceive. I probably looked like I cloaked myself in an obvious costume rather than disguise. If anyone around could smell fear though, I am sure it is just oozing out of my skin like the sludge out of the armpits of a greasy carny. I worried that if someone prompted me to speak, I would stutter a few squeaking noises and trip over a few lines of gibberish. My head echoed sounds of pounding drums caused by my elevated blood pressure.
Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a man dash across the alley. "That is only your fear speaking for you," my confident inner voice said. "It was probably only a rat or a stray cat. Don't give yourself a heart attack for nothing." My inner voice proved to be ineffective at talking me out of the irrational fear incapacitating me.
"I know that I saw something more than an innocent furry creature," I argued back in my thoughts.
"Whatever you think. Go with your instinct," ordered my conscience. "Don't blame me when your fear shortens your life."
KKKKKKKKLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A trash can slams against a wall reverberating and echoing the horrific noise thought the air between the towering buildings.
"Who's there?" I asked in panic before I could put the brakes on my mouth. There was no reply. Only the sound of the trash can rolling to a stop in the alleyway. Then I saw a silhouette on a man slither out of the shadows.
"Give me your wallet!" the stranger commanded.
"But?I..uhh?um..I?," I said trying to find words to mutter, but terror prevented me from speaking.
"Just hand over the wallet, and give me your bag as well, or I'll, I'll?be forced to hurt you," the mugger ordered while showing a knife that appeared to be at least six inches long.
I panicked and the terror fused my body to the ground beneath me. I form the words I had rushing through my head to tell the man to hold on a second so I could just hand over my possessions the thief desired.
The man lunged at me and before I realized I fell down to the concrete with blood spilling out of my abdomen. I could smell the blood pooling beneath me. The last moments of my life dawned upon me with my blood serving as the hour glass designating how much time until I die. Judging from the size of the pool I figured I had maybe ten minutes left until the end. The world around me began to fade. I could see a man entering the alley, so I cried for help as loud as I could, but the man did not seem to acknowledge my existence. Maybe the man will find me in my blood and notify the paramedics. Well, at least I still had hope until the end, and I won't die in total misery.
_________________________________________________________________________________
"That's all that you remember?" asked the Detective sitting to the right of my hospital bed.
"Well, I remember waking up and asking the nurse if she was an angel, but I am sure that is not what you are looking for," I replied.
"If that is all you remember from last night, feel lucky that the old man that found you was out looking for cans in that alley shortly after you were mugged. Another fifteen minutes of bleeding and you would have been a goner. Let's go Detective Johnson. Our work is done here. Probably just another random act of violence and mugging."
@Theaetetus,
Hmm, is it normal to be confused after reading this? Difficult to "place" for me really. It is hmm very american no doubt, it made me think of Batman and Sin City. This kind of places must exist, or they wouldn't use them in movies wouldn't they? And another thing: is this a moral story or not? Maybe the moral is that one must not search a sophisticated moral behind everything. No, it's suggestive, full of atmosphere, very well written and a nice piece of reading. Thanks for this moment of amazement, Th.
@Theaetetus,
Honestly, I would love to sit here and tell you about all of the symbolism and everything I worked into the piece, but it is what it is. For my creative writing class I had to put a character in a setting they did not belong and this is sort of what I came up with after a round of edits. This place does exist; it is the back alley behind my workplace on a dark night. At first it had a moral and meaning, but it seemed artificial so on the second run through I focused more on atmosphere to create that sort of creepy place that someone would rather not be. Thanks for the response, and honestly you read into the piece perfectly.
@Theaetetus,
Yes, it's a good story. But Theaetetus, didn't it appear before in this section (as the "Down Town Labyrinth")? Is there any difference that I didn't notice? Hope I'm not being unpleasant by mentioning that here.
@Theaetetus,
I forgot that I had posted it here. Thanks for the heads up! I just merged the two threads together.
---------- Post added at 09:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:05 AM ----------
Poseidon;70742 wrote:True story, or not?
1st hand or not?
Not a true story. The piece is 100% fiction. The only real things that it draws from are dark alleys in inner cities, and indifferent police officers in these cities desensitized by witnessing so much random violence.
@Theaetetus,
My guess is that you have never been mugged.
Otherwise, not bad at all. I enjoyed the dissonance of the character's thought on the walk:
"I walked cautiously down the street trying to display a strong sense of confidence and belonging"
He walks cautiously, but somehow imagines he can do this
and appear confident.
@Theaetetus,
No, never have been mugged, but I have heard plenty of stories about being mugged since I have written this. I am working this piece into the novel I am writing, and then I will make it a little more realistic in the mugging department. This piece was for a creative writing class, and I had to focus on setting up an environment by trying to show what the character was experiencing, rather than telling it. I never got around to making the mugging incident feel more natural and real. I am having this event be a major turning point for the main character. I think this is where despair totally hits the character and he is taken over my a very dark cynical view of the world.
@Theaetetus,
Yeah, I just see no reason for the mugger to stab the character.
As for how the mugging would influence the character, it's hard to say without having the preceding events. Though, if the stabbing can be smoothed out, that direction seems plausible.
In my own writing, the underbelly of society is top interest, so this sort of story is attractive. The narrator, the character who is stabbed, seems to have a sort of distant, WASP kinda view of the whole thing. Which I guess would make sense with the planned turn of mentality into dark and cynical after such a visceral encounter with a slice of that reality. I dig the direction.
@Didymos Thomas,
I would say that you are usually a lot safer in the alley than in a respected area.If your there they think you belong and your prepared, thats my experience of street reasoning.
@xris,
You've never been to Memphis, I gather.
@Theaetetus,
I am assuming you have never been to Milwaukee either. I was taking trash out at one of my jobs when I witnessed a drug deal going down in the alley by some thugs. Needless to say, in the inner city, you try to stay in the light at night, and on well traveled streets to make yourself less of a target. Walking down a dark alley alone is often asking for trouble.
@Theaetetus,
Or Atlanta, or Little Rock, or any other American city with a metro population greater than 200,000. It gets rough on this side of the pond.
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