You Love Me

Miss your stop on the bus. Watch the buildings blur into an unfamiliar painting. Miss the next stop as well. Watch as the two high school students fumble around in their backpacks, trying to hide the travel sized bottle of vodka. Listen to the bus creak to a stop at someone's neighborhood. It sighs, exhausted. You step off. Step away from the puddle of vomit next to the bus stop . A car alarm goes off in the distance. You're alone. Someone's mother is cooking dinner. The smell steers your hunched back to an alleyway with only a sleeping homeless man for company. You start to wander. Afraid at first. But then you look up. The wind carries the sounds of jazz and the live football match and the new episode of Tom and Jerry. Children are laughing past their bedtime, wasting time with a football. A woman is hanging her laundry whilst arguing with her mother on the phone. You reach the end of the alleyway. And then you hear her footsteps. A light tap tap tap in rhythm with her music. You turn around but she doesn't even notice you - her eyes half closed, her lips mouthing the words of the song, her shoulders rising to every beat. This is when you know. You straighten your back, toss the backpack, take out the knife from your back pocket. She's the one. You step towards her, close enough to smell the hint of rose in her shampoo. She's startled, starts to ask you who you are, her feet now still. You smile as you push the knife through her chest, her face moves from confusion to fear to horror to pain. She falls on to the ground by your brown boots, her denim overalls soaking in crimson. You crouch down and pause the song on her iPod, and then slowly take off her neon pink headphones. A unique souvenir. You take one last look at her face before leaving the alleyway and getting on another bus. It was a beautiful night.