~Chapter 2~
Only the three of us now.
Clinging to each other no matter what the cost.
The abandoning of friends is unacceptable.
No matter what… Rain… hail… snow…
Helping each other with the stolen pregnancy test when some drunk from the sleazy bar we live off rapes one of us.
It pays the rent for the flat we return to each daybreak.
It pays for the sparse food that keeps us alive.
And the child we couldn't abort.
He is quiet. He eats little. He is not a burden.
He is not any one of ours.
He belongs to the three.
Biological parents are inadequate.
We never knew the father's name.
Occasionally, one of us must get up and dance for the sweaty, spewing, drunken men in the bar.
Peeling off our minimal layers of clothing for those few extra dollars.
We shoot our bellies when the doctor says it's too late to abort.
The gun came too late for the boy.
Killing him now is against our morals.
We give up our rations for the anorexic, just to have her throw it all up again.
But we still try.
We hold each other when one of us dies from drug abuse.
We couldn't help her.
Only two now.
Not including the boy.
Together, we roam the streets for a new job.
Clinging to each other as the only hope in the world.
The old bar had kicked us out for a fresher load of whores.
We are kicked out of the flat we cannot afford.
The boy didn't wake up one nightfall.
He never woke again.
A man took us in for his brothel.
It fed us but we still lived on the streets.
One tells her friend to try and escape this life.
To find a future.
But there is no future in this world we live in.
Our world.
The last one woke up the next night to find her only companion swaying slightly at the end of a rope.
Attached to the fire escape of the second floor of the building they lived behind.
The gun was out of bullets.
I am the last one.
I took the still, white body down and buried it under a pile of litter at the end of the dark alley.
Whispering a last goodbye, I turn to roam the streets again.
~
A.N. This chapter originated in an MSN chat-room. My friends and I were chatting and one by one, they dropped out until there were only three left. I started ranting about abandonment and there being only 3 of us left. There was a 'helping each other dislodge whatever was stuck in the throat of one of us who was blue', but that was humour, and took away some angst with comic relief…Review or flame. Reviews are preferable, but I want you to tell me how I could improve.
~Opal~