The Hard City

The Pre-warning

The first thing I want to say is, I am so sorry.

I am so deeply sorry.

Imagine having billions of memories of many lives, all crammed into your brain.

What is left in me, at least, is my endless love for the ones that stayed by my side for a little longer than normal. The ones that stopped for a while. They are gone now.

But you? Do I care about you?

I am so, so sorry. I hope you can forgive me.

But you? I don't know you, and you don't know me, and you will most likely never know me until the very last moment, when I send you on your path.

I don't want to upset you.

If you saw me in the street, what would run in between those wet ears?You probably wouldn't even see me, and if you did I would merely be a small pale thing that you would soon forget.

You would never have suspected.

Where are my manners? I should introduce myself.

I am a ghost. And I have lived in this city for two hundred years.

The living can only see the living, so, by that rule, the dead can only see the dead. There are exceptions, of course, but those people are rare and few in number, even in a city this full of strange people.

But I am not important. Only the things I see are, and I have complied a list of interesting stories of people who brought great change.

I would sense a strong energy, like a pulsing warmth. I would follow, and come to a stop at your body. Everything you remember, all your life will be as if it were mine. And only a one in a million would notice me.

The rest would look around, the ground beneath you changing into a colour. These colours tend to represent who you were. Who you are. Your soul.

Some would turn a smooth chocolate brown. These are the average people, the ones who live their lives following the current. They would often give a shout in surprise, as they see body from which they had just left, like a butterfly from a cocoon. And slowly they would come to realize their fate.Then they would float away.

Often, especially in the younger ones, they would turn grey. Suicide is the most common death of the grey ones. They would sometimes not even see, and would fade away with no pull to the earth or to the sky.

The red ones scared me. They were the type of people to cling to the earth, pulling and screaming and screaming till they grew so big they sank into the ground. They would hold their ears tight, ripping, black eyes and mouth open in an endless scream. I hate the red ones.

Very rarely, there was a white one. These would be able to see me. They are the types of people who don't fear death. Who have lived a life with no regrets, and died in no pain. Sometimes, one would smile at me.

The angel of death would pull them into the heavens, as soon as they were ready to leave.

It seems the angel of death has forgotten about me, through.So I stay, and watch the souls go one by one.

Ungrudging, and unspoken.

And one in a thousand of that million would speak.

And one in ten would stay for a while. These people who stay, allow me to see a deeper picture of what they went through in life. It allows me to see their very thoughts, from the moment of birth till the last spark of death.

The first I can recall, is the story of Jenny Kingfisher, better known as King in the gangster community.

She had short curly hair, and big brown eyes. The daughter of an aristocrat, she left her home of luxury at the ripe age of fourteen to join a gang. She was able to join two years later.

And I asked her:

   "Why did you do it? You lived a life much better than most."

She smiled at me, an old smile on her wrinkly lips, with eyes of mercury and dripping like soft ice cream.

   "It wasn't my destiny."

I keep thinking about what she meant by that.Take from her statement what you will.

But as for me, my part ends, and hers begins.

And I hope that you can learn something.