Page 19 - TheRedSon_PrintInterior_430pp_5.5x8.5_9-22-2019_v1

the tops of the tall windows, splashing in ragged waves
across the unclean floor. The spacious lobby held a singular
note of choking desolation, playing to the void that frolicked
its hollows. I moved to the stairwell, drifting upward like
a whispered prayer, silent and secret. There were persons,
after a fashion, ambling through the dim hallways, living
and moving for reasons no one cared to know. The dust in
the air was thick, playing like clouds of lethargic gnats idling
between the fading bars of light projecting across the floor
from soiled windows. I felt like a ghost, haunting the spaces
of a tumbledown house, just a forgotten echo of the living,
eternally condemned to chase the dust through endless halls
of stumbling shadows.
I entered the room neighboring the apartment that
connected to the balcony. The place was like a photograph
after a flood, colorless and faint. An old man slept within,
dried and crumbling beneath the bitter weight of too much
time. He was perfectly pointless—hardly suitable for my
purposes. Still, I was feeling charitable. Finally, I allowed
him to express the power the flesh of his washed-out
existence might have enclosed, had only it been fashioned
by the songs of fallen angels, or the bright nightmares of lost
children. In his last moments, the man seemed to appreciate
what he was becoming, after I had thrown off the tomb of
his flesh, allowing him to gaze at the dream beneath. There
was so little of the man remaining I was not long at my
work. I cleaned myself off in the tiny cove of a bathroom
and proceeded out the window onto the thick tendrils of ivy.
I gained the balcony above in but a few moments,
inching around the flickering sheet of light from its lantern.
Unlocking its door barely broke my stride as I secreted
myself inside. The room was drab, sparsely decorated,
and hadn’t been cleaned for some time. Everywhere was
sprinkled the simple, stupid details that spoke to nothing
save an occupant of the least imaginative variety. After a
thorough investigation, all I discovered was that for some
22 | Mark Anzalone