|
|
The Black Chapel
IX
The back streets and darker alleys of Bridgeville still thrive and bustle with energy late into the night, however covert and stealthy it may be. There are still thieves in this city, my city, though their numbers have thinned considerably in the past century. Times are too prosperous, it seems, for thieving to be worth anyone’s while. But there are pockets of resistance: deals made in whispers in dark alleys, murders and assassinations, streets you would not walk down without fear of your life.
I breathe deeply of the putrid air that surrounds me in the twilight. It will be dawn soon, and so the hurried activity of the night is slowly fading with the stars. Fewer and fewer figures slip through the shadows, and a sleepy calm crawls through the streets like a fog.
Though most would hurry past, the cemetery is place of perfect rest and calm. They fear their own mortality; I have it to envy. As dawn approaches, a mist hangs within the cemetery, as if reluctant to break it communion with the dead beneath the tombstones. At one time there had been a church that stood nearby, brooding over these grounds like a mother. It was destroyed. I set the flame.
The stars are still shining brightly in the summer night sky, though they seem to do so only reluctantly over the darkness of the cemetery. A slight breeze has come to push the shadow-filled mist away. When you look closely there are darker figures, shadows of shadows, unbound souls whirling and darting within. I have spoken to them on occasion, of the tombstones, of the church, of the stars and death. But they no longer care for my company.
Not since Nicholas came here to die.
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI
copyright november, 1999 noah mclaughlin