Faust

Tour guide

          Crowded scenes have a tendency to squeeze you up at folks you'd rather not meet in broad daylight.

           This route up north shines me in streets I purposely avoided. Too many tourists, pickpockets and cops. The so-called normal landscape you'll have a hard time appreciating after noticing the small tents made of scrape of jackets in shaded corners or under the linden trees further from sights, more so if you know what the place looks like at 3 in the morning. Word of caution : don't wear flip-flops around here in any circumstances.

The painted tiles draw a great mural depicting an Aztec celebration under thousands of feet and used needles in styrofoam takeaway boxes. I kicked off the letter and joined the former as I squeeze through a 50-ish-looking man with short legs taking pictures for their kids and square-face wife.

I follow the flood of people, wherever they go, I go. Only when I derail too far off my initial destination do I cut some corners. Trying to shake someone off in a crowded scene is extremely easy but the pressure at the back of my head is still haunting me with the sun above occasionally making me squint my eyes, wishing I'd wear the shades.

Something's wrong.
It's been 13 minutes. No one would be that persistent on jumping someone on a fucking whim, at least those three don't appear so. I've tried to spot the tailer with bay windows across the traffic or sharp turn into dead ends but the pressure only disappears momentarily until I return to Via martinase.

Counting paranoia out of discussion, whoever it is has some serious talent.

I turn right out of intuition and find myself in a small parking lot surrounded by three-story-high brick walls partially blocking the daylight and a small gap between all the moss and dried paint blinks at me. A hangman-looking wire pole nailed next to a closed window with newspapers as curtain. The wire runs along the wall into the gap and is turned right by the distant gleam from the sunlight through the shapes of people back on Main Street. The place is empty, quiet, and filled with reflectors.

My vision dreaded hues of purple and the pressure continued throughout my walk across the perimeter. I turn left to walk along the gray and maroon washed brick wall to the left, by a light blue truck at the corner with side mirrors closed but the see-through glass gave me a small insight into the rear mirror reflecting the sights of the parking lot entrance on my south-east.

The timing would've been better if I slowed a step or two but I saw it. A slightly hunched figure with a flash of gray hair pokes out the alley before I lost sight. I saw his face but couldn't remember a single detail.

Didn't hear any footsteps. Didn't blindly follow into a possible dead end, and only did so when I was off sight. Shit, I was close to faulting  this on paranoia.

With the newfound confirmation. I gave up on catching the person by myself, it's not happening in a neighborhood I'm not accustomed to. Instead, I widen my steps and paces towards the metro station.

          20 paces behind. It's the perfect distance for gaining ground or a left turn into a kiosk if the target suddenly goes towards you. But 20 steps is still far. Far enough for me to work with.
        
          I left the shiver up my spine and the pressure up my nape in the parking lot. Forgetting their existence all together and walking side by side through the gap back in the malevolent embrace of a sunny day and heaving wave of Yankees and Europeans passing towards farer north.

Across the four-lane street and a row of bollards in the middle is the horizontal street, possibly leading to downtown or Augustus. St. My eyes swayed around the foreign district as I pathed the quickest path away from this spot in my mind.