Died Another Day
Kiesha walked along an empty stretch of a dark road in the biting wind. Since she couldn’t get even a semblance of sleep, she walked the streets of Lower Manhattan every night. Sometimes she somersaulted over a park gate and sat at a bench under a blue moon, in the quiet. Other times she walked to the bay and sat on an empty yacht. The music of the water held its own calm.
Restless today, she felt a need to take a walk in the otherwise buzzing street. She was steadily heading towards the Brooklyn Bridge. It always cleared her mind. She breathed in what might be a snowfall in the coming as she leaped over a discarded pizza box some street chump had thrown away. People! No wonder she liked her solitude.
Inside her polka-dotted parka, she hunched as the gale forced its top button open. Her wayward curls fanned about her face. Since it irritated her, she pulled down her blue beanie and concentrated on avoiding any street lights. She shouldn’t have bothered since there wasn’t a soul in sight, but you had to be careful. Deserted lanes might mean lesser crimes for today. But to her analytical mind, it meant more planning for another day. Disgusted, she shook her head- once a cop, always a cop. And that brought a deep yearning for a donut, with all the calorie-filled works. She wasn’t hungry, couldn’t be, but the longing was a knee-jerk.
And because she was distracted, she didn’t see him at first- a dark figure lurking just inside a dump of a building, waiting. Had he seen her? Could he have seen her? Even as she wondered, Kiesha slipped behind a pole that had once served as a phone booth. Now it was converted into interesting street art. Her art-challenged mind failed to understand its significance — a structure of decorative iron rods with a wooden frame background. A naked woman- they always have them naked- draped oddly around the cold bars. Her expression was of a well-satisfied woman, more like pleased and satisfied with whatever she had been doing, which was apparent even to a fool. And Kiesha was nobody’s fool. To her, it looked a little painful with all that iron poking you everywhere. But then, to each their own.
From her hiding, without moving an inch, Kiesha peeked through the corner of her crystal green, cop-trained eye and got a clear view of the building. Or whatever was left of the structure.
The man moved silently. He reminded her of Maggie, her late cat. Especially the lazy but deliberate movements with which he lit a tobacco pipe. Some people gave a finger without giving a finger, Kiesha thought. He held the carved-pipe regally, took a long drag, and blew without a care. Then leaned on a half gutted high wall and looked in the distance. In the light coming from an apartment on the opposite street, she saw the black suit-red tie. It seemed entirely out of place in the almost demolished building. Kiesha thought it was most likely to keep away the chill. But she couldn’t be sure. There was some crazy in everyone.
The mystery man suddenly looked in her direction as if he sensed her. But that couldn’t be. Even as she relaxed with that thought, he began walking towards her. Since a whimper wanted to escape, Kiesha bit down into her lower lip. She reached for her weapon, but it wasn’t there. She had forgotten that she wasn’t a cop anymore. And because she wasn’t, she didn’t lug her weapon harness everywhere. Plus, she was still reeling from her last assignment. What did they say- post-traumatic stress and all that?
As the black-suit approached the pole, Kiesha tried to recall her hand-to-hand combat routines. Because the man had definitely seen her for he stopped in front of the nude. Drew his tobacco pipe out, and tapped it. Once. Twice. Then his mouth slid into a small smile before he moved on- humming, hands in pocket, hair flying, face angled. Kiesha shifted but didn’t come out of her hiding for a full five minutes.
Then she released her breath, more out of a habit. And belatedly remembered she was a month-old-ghost.