We Adore What You Abandon
Bad wiring and cheap perfume. The electric light flickers above his head. This wasn’t his world, not in this light. The girl behind the counter asks him if he wants anything, but the flicker of is in his eyes and then his head. He can only grunt a little and point. She eyes him funny and wrinkles her nose as she shovels chips into a bag.
“Just for you is it?” He mumbles something in reply as he gives her the money, but she doesn’t catch it and wouldn’t have liked it if she had. She thinks it was just a garbled thank you, like you hear so much these days. If she only knew. He took the food and hurried out into the night-time street, steaming with the cars and the people and the ghosts. The chips steam in the cold air.
He crams them into his mouth, savouring the hot food. It had been the day’s work for this, and at least it was something, that’s better than most days. People used to be kinder, he thought sometimes, but now he was concentrating on the hot food in his hands. The acrid smell of the vinegar stinging his nostrils. He eats greedily, eyeing the people around his with suspicion. He worked for this.
He hunkers down by a wall, watching the pedestrians as they move about him. So many ghosts. He can see it in their faces. People who never wanted to walk this way. It’s why he had to leave that place with its awful electrical lights and terrifying illuminated faces. You could see their bones every time they smiled. He had to get out before, but that was a different life. So many things to thinks about then. Now it was simple. Just eating and living. Once, maybe it had been to hold someone warm. Not so much.
The chips are gone. He took his time over that last one, making sure he got the best of it. Carefully, he sucks each of his fingers, getting the last of the salt and the other flavours. That’d be it for a while. It’s not four squares any more. He be hunting for pennies and half sandwiches. It never seemed to be enough.
He hauls himself to his feet, careful on the bad leg. The papers he almost lets flutter off into the night, but still gripping, decides to take them to the bin at the side of the street. Might as well. What else is there to do? Plus, there might be something there, half a cigarette, stubbed out early by a hurried secretary. Something.
At the bin, he starts searching, digging through the strata of the day. Newspapers and coffee cups, empty crisp bags. He digs down like an archaeologist, sorting through the layers with a practised precision. Brushing past the newest news to reveal this morning’s headlines, uncovering the day by mealtime.
Then he feels something close around his hand.
He’s done this enough times to know what a rat feels like and it isn’t a rat. They bite quickly and let go. This was something else. Something soft and cold. He tries to pull it up from where it gripped him, but it was too heavy. Sighing, he puts both hands down into the bin and with no small effort pulls the baby up and out into the night. He glances around him, but no-one seems to be paying any attention.
The baby looks down at him from where he holds it, still out at arms length. It makes a noise, almost as though it is trying to greet him, or at least greet the rough warmth of his hands. He wonders who’d throw such a thing away, but then, he’s found strange things in the bins over the years. A set of false teeth, an unopened bottle of wine, a picture of the queen. Once he’d even found a twenty pound note wrapped around an unused train ticket, but that was a while ago. And these were things that he could understand people wanting to be rid of. The child gurgles, but it sounds weak. He doesn’t know whether it is going to survive after what it has been through. Its small, perfect fingers still grip on his own.
He puts the baby against his shoulder and starts to move. Slowly he weaves through the people that won’t meet his stare. At least he would eat tomorrow.
Elephant Words: We Adore What You Abandon at Strip For Me
[...] story for the Elephant Words site has gone up today, this time by the name of We Adore What You Abandon, based on the above [...]