Reminiscence of stories

For you

Low, dark clouds hung overhead, seeming to reach down to the building tops, leaving only small margins for the blue expanse beyond to peek at the earth.

My footsteps echoed through the empty, paved streets. Though the place wasn't inhabited, the lifeless cityscape gave impressions of abandonment.

I liked it better that way. Empty of life. Empty of people.

I liked the way that bike leaned unattended on that railing wich separated the road into two differing paths.

I liked the way that shop on my left was closed despite the time being nowhere near the holidays.

I liked the sound of my shoes on the wet, paved ground.

I loved that atmosphere.

Yet I could not feel glad for any of it.

Linda had died.

It was the only thought that dominated my mind, it screamed and spat it's nasty miasma, a mix of sadness, anger, regret, loneliness, meaninglessness and so, so much more that I felt I could not explain. It was simply a poison. Chaos.

Oh, Linda! I didn't even have the chance to say goodbye. How could this cruel world take you from me this suddenly? Why would it?

I longed for the company of others, so that perhaps, I may force my thoughts away from the deceased and focus on more external factors.

Yet, I knew the presence of another would do no better than simply annoy me, and that I would quickly long to be alone once more with my own thoughts, otherwise thinking that I would be doing Linda a disservice by not torturing myself with the memories of her.

Suddenly, unfortunately, I saw another man, tall, burly and wrapped in a thick green and yellow stripped long coat, turn the corner and walk in my opposite direction. Towards me then.

I cursed silently, but knew it could not be helped, the street did not belong to me after all.

I smelled him before he even got ten feet away from me, the stench of uncleanliness from not having taken a shower in multiple days, perhaps weeks, wrapping itself over the man like the haunting of a ghast.

I began to hold my breath as he passed by me, not wishing for my poor nostrils to suffer the man's bodily odor at close range. I still nodded in greeting, however, a gesture which he did not reciprocate, instead bumping into me as though he hadn't even seen me.
Feeling rather suspicious of the act, I patted my back pockets which held my wallet and phone, finding them both in their respective places.

To the sound of a soft thud, however, I turned back only to find another wallet left on the pavement.

Slightly annoyed but still deciding that leaving without a word would be unnecessarily mean, I bent down and picked up the wallet, calling to the unshowered man.

Yet, the street was empty, just as it had been only minutes ago.

My mind spun in confusion. Had I imagined the encounter? Was I going mad? No, of course not, the wallet was still in my hand and I was still aware of the stench following the man like his shadow.

I walked back, maybe he'd taken a turn at the earlier fork in the road, or he'd entered a building, or turned into an alley which I'd previously missed.

But the stinking man was nowhere to be found. Even the smell had begun to wane.

I sighed, and chose to simply abandon my search here, all I had to do was take the wallet to the police station a few streets away and I could go back to the thoughts of Linda.