The City

Bright white pure bathing

Radiance glowing

Rolling from in-between

The parting doors

 

Our vagabond was mystified

By the sight unfolding

Near deafened by the sounds accompanying  

The slowly opening doors

 

Leaving behind the brass toll box

Letting the slip fall from his hand

 

The sound and light

Wrapped themselves around him

Leading him past the doors

 

Past the threshold

Into the warm glowing promise

Away from the cold careless wind

Blowing just behind him

 

Guiding him inward

 

Until something small

Collides with the tip of his shoe

And the light spins wildly

Destroying the blinding effect

 

In the strange dark

The music and the laughter

All the wondrous sounds seemed

To have a scratchy quality

 

In the echo of his footsteps  

He carefully wanders onward

Waiting for his eyes to adjust

To reveal what he paid for

 

As they do he finds that the doorway is coated

Lined with mirrors

And the object he so carelessly kicked

Was a can light set on a stand

 

His entrance was a deception

 

And now the light was shining on the next offense

The following lie, embodied by a speaker

Blaring the addictive sounds that lured him here

Absentmindedly he began to caress his right palm

 

He decided after a moment

That there was no choice but to continue

Onward into the building

He so loved

 

So he follows the hallway

Until it dumps him into a strange cavernous

Space filled with more falsities

 

It was a street, of a sort

At least the building fronts

Complete with cardboard cars on the street

And long wooden posts to hold up

The store and house fronts

 

As he wandered the street

He began to find that there were even

Plastic people acting out

Life

 

Seated at tables with rotting food on the plates

Looking as if they were walking to a car

Staring at a book with pages that have never turned

Acting as if they were real people

As he wandered the only thing that shocked him more

Than his current surroundings

Was he was the only living thing in this place

There were no other people here with him

 

His left thumb finds its way back to his right palm

Caressing the irritation

The second payment for his entry

04/15/2012

Author's Note

0402 am

Reviews

[...]

Amazingly creative work with a superbly riveting narrative. The image of "plastic people" is haunting and unforgettable. This is turning out to be an infinitely and an infinitely scary piece of work. One doesn't know what might happen and that keeps the interest of the reader going. Can't wait to read what happens next.