Death and Other Things

It is dark...darker than it had been the night before. Darker than the bluest night in this town, one that existed for decades, centuries even, way before those that currently walked its streets had been born. Before they took their first step, and last steps. Before Richard was hit by that bus on Eighth Avenue, an avenue where the wind battered its windows and tumbled trash and leaves into the street, where rain would come and go, yet always leave its mark, where people were born and left immediately; heading out on the first train to the first place that didn't know their name, where they could reform themselves, make a new life, create a new name, leave behind that abusive father or girlfriend, live out the dreams that were crushed along with the garbage when it rained. This place, this place, it ate people alive; those few left made it by on guile and grit, squinting their eyes to keep score in a place as hostile as a kill box, hoping that one day the rain would stop, that the sun would shine through, that for once the darkness wouldn't be as black, that the blue became brighter, the sun no longer afraid of the rain, the day new and refreshing instead of the God's honest same. This place, it's stubborn in its ways, yet everyone got up in the morning and went about their days, punching clocks and sitting in traffic and carrying a brown bagged lunch; where girls got pregnant and kids dropped out of school, homeless men hoped to impress someone with their singing voice just enough to get a nickel, a quarter, if they hit that high note, this is the blackest world-and it is raining again.