original fic: roads
Yeah, bugger writing about nanotechnology's uses in forensics. That shit is old! I’ll just fail Chemistry and here - have a story instead. And it's original fic, too! TRENDWHORE!!
roads
original fiction; 1,243 words, g
It was in the earliest hours of Sunday morning that I discovered that the very last train out of the city had left without me - and with no money or any other way of getting home, that was how I found myself lost in the streets of a city that never slept, waiting for a new day to begin. Not a particularly appealing way of spending my Sunday morning - but I had no other choice, it seemed. I sighed in frustration. Damnit, I cursed to myself. Even during the daytime, Melbourne was not a friendly city - all anonymous faces and crowded streets. But at this hour? It felt as if I was the only person left on the planet.
In the meantime, I had nothing to do, except wait for the city to gear up again, for the light of dawn to come and wipe away the dark and grime of this early morning. From where I stood, I could see the streets of the city stretched out as far as I could see ahead of me - like the dark and vague landscapes of ghostly, half-formed dreams. Above, dirty white and amber lights overhead flickered on and off, bathing the streets in an unearthly glow, the light puddling in the gutters and reflecting strangely, and the sound of cars and trucks occasionally rumbling past echoed through the cold, polluted air.
This, I thought, was not a happy place to be. Indeed, it was almost a purgatory of sorts. And in the small hours of a Sunday morning, the city felt like a wasteland I had been left to wander, where it was as if hell was always just around the corner from where I went. A sense of unease, of restless danger lingered in the air with the smell of exhaust fumes and cigarette smoke.
Most of the people I passed seemed totally out of it - like strange, surreal shadows of themselves, lost totally in their own claustrophobic worlds. Nobody acknowledged the presence of anybody else. I checked my watch. Two A.M. I had four more hours to go before the first trains would depart the city.
I looked up - immersed in my thoughts, I'd been staring down at the pavement as I was walking, and now I had no idea where I was, or how far I'd walked. I was at the corner of some main road and an alleyway, and as I looked down into the alley, I could see people milling about drunkenly, and hear the beat of some dance song thumping from inside the bar not too far from where I was standing. The corner smelled like garbage and urine. How typical.
Somebody yelled out, sounding threatened, scared, and I glanced over to see where it came from. It had come from a girl, who didn't look any older than twenty, who was being pushed around by a man much taller and stronger-looking than her. The fact that nobody seemed to be particularly concerned didn't really surprise me. Typical - most likely these morons were too afraid to stand up to the guy for the fear of having their own faces punched in. I sighed.
"Hey!" I yelled, my voice echoing strangely in the confined space of the alley. "Get the hell away from her. Who do you think you are?"
"This," he said quietly, turning towards me slowly, each syllable steadily growing more and more slurred, "is none of your goddamned business." I wondered what the hell he was on. I hated men like these - all-balls-and-no-brain assholes who thought they owned the world. That the women they spent their weekends with were the dirt beneath their feet.
"Yeah, well," I said, glaring at him steadily. He glanced back at the girl quickly, then, evidently deciding he didn't feel like trying to beat the crap out of a guy way more sober than he was, spat on the ground near me, and walked off. I watched him walk off with narrowed eyes, then turned to the girl.
How sad. This was what was referred to as the nightlife in this city - this soulless, bland place that couldn't seem to stay awake, couldn't function properly without the aid of alcohol and drugs. And the people who bothered to stay out this late all seemed to be the same - the desperate, thrill-chasing hedonists of the twenty-first century.
"You okay?" I asked her.
She shrugged her bare shoulders. "Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks for that, man."
My job done, I began to walk off, until she called out to me. "Hey!"
I turned around.
"Well. . . ain't the first time this has happened," she said obliquely. "Heaps of bastards out here, 'specially round this time of night." She looked me up and down. "What're you doing here, anyway? Don't look like the sorta guy who'd be roaming the streets with girls and boys like me."
That, I definitely was not. "True," I said, crossing my arms, not offering any explanation.
She considered me for a second, looking me up and down. "Wanna go for a walk?"
I wondered whether she made a habit of talking to random men in the streets this late at night. It was probably how she got herself mixed up with people like the guy I'd just scared off for her.
"Someone probably should have taught you about stranger danger when you were a kid," I told her.
There was a pause, in which she glared at me, looking as if she were wishing me a painful death, and then I said "Oh, why not." I could have used company, anyway - I feel sure I could have gone mad in the following hours without anything else to break the tedium.
She smiled slightly. I turned around suddenly, and began to walk off. She followed me, running the first few steps to catch up to me. Even now, I still had no idea where I was going, and the city still seemed just as strange and inscrutable as it had before - but now, the presence of another person with me was-- well, it made me feel less alone here.
"I've been with him for eight months now," she said, breaking the silence. I didn't respond - I just looked over at her, waiting for her to explain. "And like I said, this ain't the first time this has happened."
"You're being an idiot," I told her.
“Yeah, well,” she said, shrugging.
She began to tell me about how they had been together for almost eight months. How she (it was funny, how I never actually found out her name - it didn't seem to matter, really) hadn't left him because she couldn't bear to. She'd tried, a few times, but despite the fact he was a total jerk, she couldn't bear being without him. He felt like the only constant in her constantly-shifting life, and she needed to hang onto that for as long as possible. Or so it seemed.
I couldn't understand it, nor did I try to. She finished talking, and I didn't have anything to reply to her with. She didn't seem to mind.
And so we walked, losing ourselves in the streets of this empty city. Wasting the early Sunday morning, waiting for the sun to rise again and wipe the slates of our lives clean, leaving us to write our own new beginnings.
roads
original fiction; 1,243 words, g
It was in the earliest hours of Sunday morning that I discovered that the very last train out of the city had left without me - and with no money or any other way of getting home, that was how I found myself lost in the streets of a city that never slept, waiting for a new day to begin. Not a particularly appealing way of spending my Sunday morning - but I had no other choice, it seemed. I sighed in frustration. Damnit, I cursed to myself. Even during the daytime, Melbourne was not a friendly city - all anonymous faces and crowded streets. But at this hour? It felt as if I was the only person left on the planet.
In the meantime, I had nothing to do, except wait for the city to gear up again, for the light of dawn to come and wipe away the dark and grime of this early morning. From where I stood, I could see the streets of the city stretched out as far as I could see ahead of me - like the dark and vague landscapes of ghostly, half-formed dreams. Above, dirty white and amber lights overhead flickered on and off, bathing the streets in an unearthly glow, the light puddling in the gutters and reflecting strangely, and the sound of cars and trucks occasionally rumbling past echoed through the cold, polluted air.
This, I thought, was not a happy place to be. Indeed, it was almost a purgatory of sorts. And in the small hours of a Sunday morning, the city felt like a wasteland I had been left to wander, where it was as if hell was always just around the corner from where I went. A sense of unease, of restless danger lingered in the air with the smell of exhaust fumes and cigarette smoke.
Most of the people I passed seemed totally out of it - like strange, surreal shadows of themselves, lost totally in their own claustrophobic worlds. Nobody acknowledged the presence of anybody else. I checked my watch. Two A.M. I had four more hours to go before the first trains would depart the city.
I looked up - immersed in my thoughts, I'd been staring down at the pavement as I was walking, and now I had no idea where I was, or how far I'd walked. I was at the corner of some main road and an alleyway, and as I looked down into the alley, I could see people milling about drunkenly, and hear the beat of some dance song thumping from inside the bar not too far from where I was standing. The corner smelled like garbage and urine. How typical.
Somebody yelled out, sounding threatened, scared, and I glanced over to see where it came from. It had come from a girl, who didn't look any older than twenty, who was being pushed around by a man much taller and stronger-looking than her. The fact that nobody seemed to be particularly concerned didn't really surprise me. Typical - most likely these morons were too afraid to stand up to the guy for the fear of having their own faces punched in. I sighed.
"Hey!" I yelled, my voice echoing strangely in the confined space of the alley. "Get the hell away from her. Who do you think you are?"
"This," he said quietly, turning towards me slowly, each syllable steadily growing more and more slurred, "is none of your goddamned business." I wondered what the hell he was on. I hated men like these - all-balls-and-no-brain assholes who thought they owned the world. That the women they spent their weekends with were the dirt beneath their feet.
"Yeah, well," I said, glaring at him steadily. He glanced back at the girl quickly, then, evidently deciding he didn't feel like trying to beat the crap out of a guy way more sober than he was, spat on the ground near me, and walked off. I watched him walk off with narrowed eyes, then turned to the girl.
How sad. This was what was referred to as the nightlife in this city - this soulless, bland place that couldn't seem to stay awake, couldn't function properly without the aid of alcohol and drugs. And the people who bothered to stay out this late all seemed to be the same - the desperate, thrill-chasing hedonists of the twenty-first century.
"You okay?" I asked her.
She shrugged her bare shoulders. "Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks for that, man."
My job done, I began to walk off, until she called out to me. "Hey!"
I turned around.
"Well. . . ain't the first time this has happened," she said obliquely. "Heaps of bastards out here, 'specially round this time of night." She looked me up and down. "What're you doing here, anyway? Don't look like the sorta guy who'd be roaming the streets with girls and boys like me."
That, I definitely was not. "True," I said, crossing my arms, not offering any explanation.
She considered me for a second, looking me up and down. "Wanna go for a walk?"
I wondered whether she made a habit of talking to random men in the streets this late at night. It was probably how she got herself mixed up with people like the guy I'd just scared off for her.
"Someone probably should have taught you about stranger danger when you were a kid," I told her.
There was a pause, in which she glared at me, looking as if she were wishing me a painful death, and then I said "Oh, why not." I could have used company, anyway - I feel sure I could have gone mad in the following hours without anything else to break the tedium.
She smiled slightly. I turned around suddenly, and began to walk off. She followed me, running the first few steps to catch up to me. Even now, I still had no idea where I was going, and the city still seemed just as strange and inscrutable as it had before - but now, the presence of another person with me was-- well, it made me feel less alone here.
"I've been with him for eight months now," she said, breaking the silence. I didn't respond - I just looked over at her, waiting for her to explain. "And like I said, this ain't the first time this has happened."
"You're being an idiot," I told her.
“Yeah, well,” she said, shrugging.
She began to tell me about how they had been together for almost eight months. How she (it was funny, how I never actually found out her name - it didn't seem to matter, really) hadn't left him because she couldn't bear to. She'd tried, a few times, but despite the fact he was a total jerk, she couldn't bear being without him. He felt like the only constant in her constantly-shifting life, and she needed to hang onto that for as long as possible. Or so it seemed.
I couldn't understand it, nor did I try to. She finished talking, and I didn't have anything to reply to her with. She didn't seem to mind.
And so we walked, losing ourselves in the streets of this empty city. Wasting the early Sunday morning, waiting for the sun to rise again and wipe the slates of our lives clean, leaving us to write our own new beginnings.