darkness 1

someone is dying a bit at a time. pieces

of their psyche have withered as the pain mounts

and the curtain begins to draw closed.

..

darkness 2

the school is in lockdown. not a drill. footsteps

click smartly in the corridor as if the feet were clad in hobnailed boots. ms. brashton puts her finger to her lips to signal total silence to the kids under the desks and tables. it scares some of the kids to see ms. brashton’s eyes roll so wildly.

..

darkness 3

he has to walk to work on sundays because clock-in is at 5am and the sunday bus does not run early enough.

half a block before he gets to the bridge over the river a drug dealer wearing a highly visible construction worker’s vest wheels up on a stolen bicycle and says “you want anythang?”

God help him, he does. but ha shakes his head.

“suitcha seff,” says the drug man skeptically and wheels away.

..

light 1

at last people emerge from the blind-cornered corridor. he asks a congenial-looking couple if they had been on flight 3201 and one of the women says yes; he relaxes slightly. people come out in clumps, then a hefty stream, then odd pairs and singletons.

at last SHE appears, smiling gamely against her exhaustion. they embrace.

..

darknesses 4 and 5

in lanes five and six babs (bowling alley bitch sadie) and fetl (fuggin edwina the loony) mix it up. soon all four of their ears are streaming blood from pulled pierced earrings. Babs lands a blunt-force punch to fetl’s breadbasket. fetl whooshes out air and collapses in a heap

in lane 41 a man hoists a ball from the ball return chute and pulls it up to his chest; but that small spike in his exertion makes something break in the man’s chest. The ball drops from his inert fingers and he falls to the floor.

..

light 2 through 4; darkness 6

three children were born to three sisters in the space of three days. they became two jameses and a margaret, who would become betty. fifteen years hence there would be a death in the family, and a bitterly contested will. a james was bequeathed half the fortune of the deceased, but the will did not specify which james.

..

gray of light 5 and darknesses 7 and 8

it is dawn. a kitten

meanders through a parking lot. a car

whose driver is texting on her cell phone

almost runs the kitten down, but she is nimble.

the driver, shocked

to be so near becoming felinocidal, stops,

puts down her cell phone, opens her door

and entices the kitten into her car

and they have a nice life together for many years.

alas that the little girl

searching for her lost kitten in the parking lot

of the apartment complex where she lives

is bereft

and consequently

lives in darkness.