Lines

The Vestige

Hazy neon cascading in a rainbow of nausea.

He looked up at the endless skyline of towers and avarice, all of man stretched to the horizon. Reaching for what treasures, he never quite knew.

"Prut, what ye say his name was?"

Torn from the visions of green, the colors of nature that were assaulted and boiled away against a migraine of artificiality, Prut regained his composure. "Something Slavic, like Botoya or Raskov."

"Raskov, tha's the one I fink."

Prut turned his attention back upward, but the intensity had dimmed slightly. He could think more clearly as the smell of ozone mixed with smog crashed into him. The sounds of a jettisoning commuter connected the dots from there, someone on their way to or from work sat comfortably in a hovering machine. He never owned his own, but after a few more cases he might change that.

With a turn of his foot, Prut rolled the corpse over to reveal its back to himself and the man beside him still crouched low. 

"Some rounds 'ere, took a few shots. Don't fink it did 'im in though."

"I agree, there's trauma on the back of his head. That's what got him, perhaps. He stooped to hold himself after the shot, then they made him pay for that mistake."

"Bloody rough'un, s'pose it were quick."

"All you can hope for." Prut's words faded as they left his lips. He brought up an anachronistic cigarette to his mouth. A generation long forgotten nodded with him as he continued the bizarre stereotype. He couldn't find the trenchcoat to go with it, but he still felt its presence.

"Whatchye think, we get on out of 'ere and head on back. Aye?"

"One last look, if I may."

The man gestured in genuine admittance. He leaned back into a more comfortable seated position, and watched Prut who was now descending himself to feel around the detritus around the body. Its outline almost shed a latent ring of dust, the pavement against his fingers felt strongly of coarse, bitter notes.

"You ever wonder what it was like on Earth?"

"Nope, though I know you do given ye ask me fourteen times a case."

"I figure eventually you'll say yes and give me something more worthwhile to digest."

"Aye, ye s'posin' a lot of me. I like my life jus' fine, would hate for all this and that. Rats and roaches and weather, bah. It's just a big ol' fuckadoo, innit?"

"Whatever that means."

"Means what are you playin' at? Got somethin' on his perimeter er somethin'?"

"No, just something I always like to confirm. You know of snakes?"

"Aye, but not much."

"They would shed their skin." Prut glanced at his partner to check for recognition, who nodded in return. "The dead skin would be left behind, a carnal and archaic remnant of its creator. Of a life continuing forward and progressing. Corpses, especially younger corpses almost always have this halo of dust and debris around them. Like the life they didn't get to live just fell out around them once they hit their final resting place."

"S'abit morbid, but I reckon I've felt a thing like that. That what y'er doin' then?" his voice carried a melancholy hue.

Prut turned his head again to look at Sam. Still sitting, he now was looking at his hands in his lap. Contemplating something. It felt like he had revealed something of his past without intending, and his body language radiated the desire for it to not continue. Prut looked away, choosing to accept the unspoken terms. He wouldn't pry further.

"Let's get out of here already."