A Cloud in Heaven

Part 4

        He moved beyond his crypt, out into the crisp autumn air. He managed to bathe that morning and satisfy the hunger he ignored. He wore proper clothing for the elements. He was dressed in an old black jacket that had seen better years, crumpled blue jeans patched in several places with sloppy stitching, and a pair of scuffed and beaten sneakers, with all of them trying to outlive their expected life spans. He walked his usual route, driving himself forward against the slight breeze. As he marched he felt uncomfortable. All of his medication had been depleted with every single pill decimated by his disease. He was bare. He had no defense against the specter. Now that his name was called he would receive no more. He knew he was cut off. He had to fight this war alone now, a broken man without a weapon to defend himself. Everything around him now felt like it was closing in. The familiar gray sights all around exerted pressure. He felt squeezed by every building and every sickly tree. It was as if the wind bent the structures to trap him. He pressed on. He walked to the spot of his encounter with the man. The cellphone was gone. Removed by a sidewalk sweeping machine or a passer bye. All reminder of the man now erased as if the moment never occurred. He was just a faded memory to remind Allen of his fleeting mortality. Allen pressed on. A determination drove him today. The pressure and reminders around him were not stopping him from moving forward. He felt them clawing, always present but he had to move. He felt sorry for himself long enough, he was letting his afflictions control him completely no more. Today he wanted to try something he never dared try before. He began to move from any familiar route he walked before. His heart beat heavier every step he took away from the comfortable tract. He wandered into old, decrepit streets and decaying building. They felt brand new to him even in their decline. They were sights he had never beheld. He observed closely everything he came across. The arcs and colors of the graffiti the painted across the cracking concrete walls of shuttered factories, every divot and pit in the warn asphalt, and even the browning weed that managed to spring up in the urban sprawl enraptured him to no end. He absorbed the sights, the sounds, and the colors. He tried to make a mental note of how the sun hit every object, how it darkened and illuminated the forms around him. He tried to feel everything around him no matter how common place or mundane. A slight warmness from within him began to flow out. He did not know its origin but he could feel it circulate within. A small smile cracked through his lips. This was the first time he felt one upon his face in as long as he could remember. He pressed deeper into the urban maze until he was completely lost. There were no signs for him to follow, just the confusion of the city.

        For hours he weaved himself through the concrete jungle. The liberation of discovery calmed some, but not all, of the fervent anxiety that lied just beneath the surface of his chilled skin. It still ate at him but it was muted. Pills numbed all of the pain. Medication deadened everything inside. This was a new type of relief. It was not as powerful as he still felt the foreboding presence of the specter looming by but the edge of the scythe was dulled. The sharp pain was less intense as the crisp air and smell of dead leaves flowed through his nose and mouth. He was breathing in the world in all of its boring excitement. As he continued to press through the bowels of the crumbling metropolis he made his way beneath an overpass. As he walked beneath the trash strewn arch supporting roads above something called out to him. It was low and raspy. He swiveled around from his path to find the source it was emanating from. Come here. A stack of tarp covered boxes beckoned him closer. He was hesitant as fear stoked the flames of anxiety within him again. He froze. Come here. I won't bite. From the depth of the refuse a raggedy man appeared. He was grizzled with mange and neglect. His grey hair matted with caked layers of dirt infrequent rains have not washed clean. His skin was like worn leather broken in by painful time. As he approached Allen reeled back.