HOLLOW
By: J.A. Carlton
Just keep walking Alex, pretend you don't see them and they'll leave you alone. God I hate this…she sighed forcing her eyes not to linger on the scene to her left. She was trying not to see the old man at the bus stop across the street sucking on his cigarette, trying even harder not to see the creature that he fed with each pull on the damned thing. She didn't want to see these things but she couldn't remember a time when she hadn't. Odd thing though was that she couldn't remember it ever bothering her the way it had been doing for the last few years. Yeah…well time does go by doesn't it? she thought and tasted a faint bitterness in the back of her throat as she continued down the street she walked twice a day, five days a week for the last four years. She preferred the direction she was headed in. Home.
Her apartment of the last four years was a third floor walk-up with creaky hardwood floors and a penchant for huge feathery legged centipedes, but it was hers. There was no one else to come in at all hours of the night, bringing along whatever disaster whether human or other-worldly, with them. No despondent or broken families, no broken people with life stealing creatures hanging around them, daring them to take another breath, another drink, another toke, another shot, another anything. Nothing to laugh and clap with dark twisted features and sinister glee when the blows fell and blood flowed. No one in her immediate sphere of knowledge whose pain would beg unknowingly for her solace, that which she had to give though doing so, she was certain, fed her own little life stealing creature.
So good to be home…she sighed internally as she did every work day. She turned the locks more out of habit than anything else. She'd decided a long time ago that on a third floor walk-up, you could pretty much leave your doors unlocked and you'd never be bothered, at least in this part of town, and in this building. Off came the shoes, 'woosh' went the purse sliding across the floor, coming to rest against the side of the couch, snag went her sock against that one little nail in the floorboard that always said 'welcome home' in its own twisted little way. She didn't mind though, it never bit her foot, just liked to nibble on her socks, and in doing so, it forced her to buy new ones regularly instead of wearing them till there was nothing left.
Off to the fridge, gripping the slick floor with her toes, twist open a beer, skate back to the living room and plop onto the couch. Just a drop of beer leaps onto her shirt as she arranges the pillow behind her back and smiles with the remote in hand.
Alexandra Bentley's graduation present to herself was this apartment. She'd started her job as Assistant to the Purchasing Director the day after graduating college. No vacation necessary, just a paycheck that would buy her some level of peace of mind. She looked at the clock on the VCR, flipped the channel to one of her favorite shows and hunkered down wondering why she'd agreed to go and meet the girls tonight.
If you don't accept an invitation once in a while they stop asking… she reminded herself and frowned. She liked the people she worked with, the girls were all pretty nice and they all managed to get along surprisingly well. Still, every now and again, as was bound to happen in an office and factory full of women, sometimes things were said that were maybe not so nice.
While the fictional lives of a Reverend's insanely extended family played in the background, the trials and tribulations of their lives neatly packaged in forty four minute blocks for easy consumption, (which was one of the reasons she really enjoyed the show), one little comment circled Alex's head like a vulture waiting for the meat to rot. The worst part was that there was nothing she could say. She couldn't dispute the observation, and she sure couldn't explain it, all she could do was sit by and watch the twisted little figure at her co-workers side suck out the energy behind the words, snacking on whatever had prompted the woman to say them in the first place.
Alex and Becky had been sitting in the break room with Sarah. They'd all just finished lunch and were tossing around the idea of going for a walk around the block when Sarah started moaning again about how tired she was.
"…it's Mikey, he just doesn't sleep at night… and with this cold of his, he's just up pretty much every hour on the hour…" she sighed.
"I don't know why you don't just have Brian take care of him… he's not working right now, you are… you need your sleep," Alex shook her head after meeting Sarah's eyes, "Sorry… why don't you just sit back and put your feet up for a while, Becky and I'll go… you rest," she suggested rising to her feet and sweeping her lunch wrappings into a ball and tossing them into the trash can from across the room. She folded her plastic grocery bag and stuck it into her pocket.
"Jeez man why don't you invest in a lunch box if you insist on bringing your own?" Becky asked having watched the same lunchtime routine for four years. "I'll get you one for Christmas…"
"No thanks… the bags come with the groceries… it's fine," Alex shook her head and looked at her co-worker, "You ready?"
Becky nodded and looked at Sarah, "You sure you don't want to come?"
"Nah… I'm just gonna close my eyes a while… wake me when you get back okay?"
"Okay," Becky nodded.
Then they'd rounded the corner, turning down a lovely little tree lined street where the green-gold fluttering light never failed to shout, "surprise! I'm here!" and made Alex sigh with something unfulfilled. Every time she did though, she wondered if there was some dark wrinkly little bastard sucking the life out of her sigh. I don't care… she remembered thinking, it's beautiful here… if I died with this kind of beauty in my eyes I'd be happy…
"That was a little cold Alex. You know Brian's been looking for a job…" Becky said, pulling Alex from the joy of the sun-latticed street, drawing her vision to the constantly shifting black-gray thing that never let Alex get a good look at it. Not that she really wanted to see it that clearly anyway, but it could get nauseating if she tried to pin it down.
She turned her eyes straight ahead, "Yeah, he's still looking for a job… not working, she's the one drawing the paycheck, she's the one supporting him while he joins the bar's softball team… I'm sorry I thought he blew his back out…" she stopped herself, they'd had this conversation too many times, with each other and with Sarah, "…all I'm saying is that he should be the one getting up in the night and letting Sarah sleep… isn't that what partners do? Support and help each other? She's supporting him, he should be supporting her with the parenting…"
"You know that, and I know that…so does Sarah but you don't have to keep bringing it up… don't you think she's beat down enough? I mean they've already been forced back to her Mom and Dad's house… that can't be easy…" Becky preached.
"You're right… it's her life… I shouldn't say anything," Alex blunt cut the reprimand. She couldn't take the gluttonous satisfaction on that things' face any longer.
Becky had looked at her then, "Y'know sometimes I don't get you Alex…"
"What?" she'd asked knowing what would happen, what she'd see.
"I know you don't like that Brian doesn't help her but how do you just turn your back on it? How do you just shut it off? You do that all the time… whenever a subject gets hot you throw a bucket of water on it… it's like you just don't really feel anything… like none of it makes a difference to you really…"
At that Alex stopped, took a breath and looked her co-worker dead in the eye, "It used to matter Beck… a looong time ago," she'd smirked then and they'd continued their walk in silence but the damage had been done. The beautiful fluttering golden light that brought her small moments of pleasure had been dimmed, filmed over with a pall of gray. Becky had a way of ripping the pleasure out of the day for anyone she chose to. The sad part was that she did it without conscious effort or malice. It was just her way sometimes.
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please R&R
THanks
