A pastiche

A Story by Emily Jarvis

It was midnight on a cold, black evening; winter seemed lost in the abyss of tall grey backstreet buildings. The hard rain spat and drooled, hammering mercilessly against the cracked pavement, shimmering in the dull streetlamps which created dim pools of light along the narrow street. The foul stench of sewage and waste lingered in the air and in the distance; people were driving cars along the road to nowhere. Faces red and dripping with a mixture of sweat and water, an annoying group of fitness fanatics jogged swiftly by –

“Keep going, we’ll be there soon”

“Yeah right! That’s what you keep saying, I’m soaked!”

“Common, just keep it up OK?”

“I’ll try but I’m just so exhausted!”

and a posse of corrupted youths in a dank, dingy alley with the scent of smoke and damp gripping tightly to their clothes, pointing and laughing at a small boy, who was intimidated by their peer pressure and violent nature.

“Here, try some of this,”

“Do it or I’ll hurt you some more!”

“Help! Please someone…”

His plea went unanswered.

Three drunken girls sat on a crumbling wall, crying out to the skies for freedom and revenge, with a large bottle of distilled vodka, aiding the pain, carefully balanced and wrapped in a crinkled brown paper bag. Their slurred voices echoed through the thick, musty air.

“How could he do this to me?!”

They were now lying on the stone cold ground, like the bricks of the fallen wall that they had kicked in anger.

A lone prostitute was crouched as if pinned to the wall behind her, staring into space, rocking backwards and forwards as if possessed - like a caged animal, trying to break free from her dismal repetitive life - her dainty high heeled shoes tired and worn out, matching her scrunched up eyes and misshapen face.

A solitary man limped feebly, coughing up a deadly disease and falling to the ground, neglected by everyone, except the street he lay to rest on. The foul stench of death hung over his head.

A grubby baby with a screeching cry like the breaks on a rusty car lay in a gutter, abandoned and left to fend for itself in the confusing new world it knew so little about.

A corpse, rotting in a pile of rubbish that was littered with flies, scarred with a wound caused by an evil tale of love and hate, which time itself would never heal.

It was the worst night I could remember.