Saved By a Stranger

No one stopped to look. No one glanced in the alley I cried in.

I was tired of this place, so tired of the endless days that stretched out before me. The emptiness in my heart was eating me alive, with no end in sight. My own darkness was swallowing me whole and leaving nothing alive. The tears froze on my bright red cheeks. I was tired of feeling so broken, but most of all I was tired of being so alone. I pulled out the cold heavy weapon from my coat and stared at it.

"If someone would look this way," I thought, "If someone would just glance at me and see my pain. I won't do it."

There was a man standing in front of me.

After he removed the single bullet from my pistol, he handed it back to me, and left.

I followed the man at a distance back to his apartment.

He knew that I had followed him and waited at the door to let me in.

For reasons I cannot explain I entered his tiny apartment. I fell asleep at the table playing with the bullet and woke up to my alarm the following morning. There was a pillow beneath my head, a blanket over my shoulders, and a note that read: "Dear Stranger..."