Sorrow Street

The man inhaled the musty air, the dust flew into his lungs. He wheezed, exhaled, and the dust flew out. The last light clicked off, and the street was plunged into complete and utter darkness; the silence was complete. The street knew the man in the old, old house very well, he was there from the beginning, the very beginning. He had helped lay the concrete, paint the houses, put up the plywood, and plant the trees. The street felt sorry for the man, So sorry. His life was imprinted on its sidewalks, its asphalt, its trees and plants. The street had seen his losses, his pain, and his grief, his sorrow, his dwindling will to live.

The man sat in his little room. His eyes focused on a featureless wall, he wasn’t tired, he had slept his sleep, and needed no more tonight. Moonlight exposed dust in the air, and he looked at the clock. ''4:30. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.'' Sitting on the wall, The clock whispered to him, it softly informed the man of the ever-trekking, inevitable passage of time. The clock was the only sound that the man’s ears intercepted, but there was another sound, the sound of his own heart. The organ pumped, blood rushed through his veins; the red fluid of life itself. His heart’s endless thumping seemed to sync up with the clock, it was uncanny, the pumping and ticking convulsed in perfect unison. ''Tick tock. Lub dub. Tick tock. Lub dub. Tick dub. Tick dub.'' The man found this very interesting, nothing like this had ever happened before in his long time on the street. His chair seemed to let him sink deeper. Deeper. Deeper.

Tick dub… tick dub… tick dub… he suddenly realized that something was very wrong. He tried to tear his arms away from the chair, to get up and escape the clock. His skin seemed to be grafted into the cloth. His heart rate sped up in terror, and he screamed for help, and he screamed again, and he screamed again, and again. The walls started to close in, like the house was crunching in on itself. the clock’s endless ticking sped up, ticking and tocking at an impossible rate, still in perfect unison with the heart in his chest. TICKDUB TICKDUB TICKDUB  

The chair, the floor, the walls, they all imploded into themselves.''' '''

but then the clock didnt tick again, Nor did it tock. It just… stopped.

And so did his heart.

And so did his life.''' '''

He was dead before he hit the ground. But he did fall, and the street was so very happy for him, because he was now just an object, a feature of the street, a decoration. Just like the ceramic gnomes, like the cracked concrete, like the plastic flamingos. Lifeless forevermore.

“Goodbye,” whispered the street to the soulless bag of flesh, blood and bones.