Autumn Nights

The yellow lights flickered over head. The new electric bulbs make a dim racket in the air above the street. An entire street lit with electric lights. How marvelous. An entire street bathed in the orange light of electricity. How grand. The lights overhead crackled and one popped, dropping that portion of the street down into the comforting black of night. Above the stars seemed to dim as if they took offense at the lights that man had created. Only a few could bee seen in the sky, the rest were hidden being the perpetual black haze over head. Far in the distance a ship bellowed. The loud horn echoing off the heavy streets as the entire vessel plodded it’s way into the harbor. The winter wind flew through the street, gusting now as it brought up the newspapers and cigarette buts that littered the ground. Tossing them up like the leaves that made them.

A heavy footfall sounded around the corner. Bouncing off the lamppost as another gust of wind rended a few more pieces of paper from the ground. Another footfall hit the ground, and then there was nothing. Only the whistling of the wind, only the horns of ships driving by, only the crackling of electric lights. A shadow arched over the walkway, splitting under the orange lights. A bulky figure, a head on a coat, a wide shouldered scarecrow perhaps with glowing red eyes in an orange pumpkin. The unearthly shadow of this form, steps forward slowly withdrawing under the harsh yellow light of the light overhead as it drifts closer and closer. The footsteps mix with the sounds about him, like some cannons added to Tchaikovsky’s overture, these footsteps mix the with commotion of the street. Again and again the fall, the shadow sinking faster and faster into the yellow light, until a form appeared.

In the dimming light a passerby who saw the shadow might not know what to expect. A murder perhaps, a smoking gun in his hand, a large trench coat covering his mighty form as he slowly stalks down the street looking for new pray. A zombie perhaps, waken from his solemn grave come to right the wrongs of his oppressors or under the rule of some unholy sorcerer with the flesh of his face mixing with the liter on the ground. A mighty scarecrow come from some hellish farm with a huge orange head, a grinning mouth, and flaming eyes sent to haunt the streets in the unhallowed month of October.

The wind howled just a little more, and a small whirlwind of papers flew up off the street. The yellow lights flickered and buzzed, and some moths flew around the lamp posts. The cold night swirled around this lonesome street mixing the sounds of the ocean and the city into one. From far off children cried in an old apartment. Somewhere a woman screamed and somewhere the echoes of gunshots ricocheted off the walls. The sounds mixed in the air and sang a lullaby to that sleepy city, for somewhere that great hulk paced.