Undead hearts

The empty apartment

Sidewalks are only interesting when you're trying to avoid looking at something else. No one dreams about the blacked dots of long since chewed gum or the cracks home to a handful of ants and a few mean plants. They only catch your mind if you're to hide from some obvious truth blaring in the world around you. The sidewalk might become vastly interesting to someone if they noticed their bitter ex across the street or heard someone call their name. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case for me.

Personally I was hiding from the world. It was falling apart. Everywhere you looked the news, a poster, or two girls chattering amongst themselves you saw the shattered bits of what once was. The last few months there had been so many raids, protests, bombings, and battles the filthy newscasters had a buffet of violence to broadcast. Now days the heartwarming stories everyone looked forward to had been shoved away and replaced by sloppily written accounts of the bittersweet life of another missing person.

No matter how hard I tried to block out the world, the radios, which hardly had any music except patriotic bullshit, were already worming their messages into my head. The regular clicking of my boots on the ground could take my focus away form the idle chatter of less worrisome people, but nothing could keep me from picking up some terrible news, synchronized on every radio and TV on every channel. While the words were treated as white noise by everyone else, no matter where I walked that crackling voice seemed oppressive. It screamed from everywhere at once, there was nothing I could do but let the words sink in.

The US has finally declared war...weapons are unheard of in their strength...other countries...prepare for the worst...local raids...what is Eibmoz...more people reported missing...

It was all the same, just with different phrasing spoken from a different voice. No one really knew what was happening. No one knew where this weapons superpower came from. That created a mass panic; people went crazy, others used everything as a mask to terrorize others. Gangs broke out, mysterious disappearances were a common thing. Yet, that was what our country thrived in. Suddenly, weapon sales skyrocketed, shop owners found themselves overwhelmed with scared and confused people handing them money. Others, just wanting to get this nightmare forgotten turned to drugs. The government was so worried about avoiding ruin by a mysterious evil that they let America ruin itself. Half the population was thriving the other half almost insane.

Here I was. I wanted to go back to my apartment and worry about myself. I didn't care about the gunshot behind me if home sweet home was only a few blocks away. Everyone else seemed to care; they were all rushing to where the sound came from, someone was even screaming. I just laughed and kept my head down, people were acting as if this didn't happen twice a day. It was funny how normal people insisted they kept their lives, acting surprised at mundane gunfire. They didn't get that this was the new normal. In all the commotion I walked right into a bystander.

My shuffling feet hit his rushing legs and I stumbled, tottering for a millisecond. In that millisecond a women passing by bumped my shoulder and I crashed down. The sidewalk I was staring at leaned up and grabbed my arm. The crashing echoed in my ear and I tried to regain my senses. The woman leaned down and offered me a hand up.

"I'm terribly sorry. Are you alright?" She asked

"Perfectly fine," I replied, plastering on a smile and brushing myself off. My legs were already in motion as soon as I finished proving myself unharmed. However, before I could take a step forward she had grabbed my shoulder and was spinning me around.

"Sir, you're bleeding." I looked down to where her eyes were darting and saw the line of blackish red trailing from my elbow. "I have a band-aid in my car," She started walking across the street and I reluctantly followed. With people like this it was better to just agree with them and let them think they are helping. She glanced back before reaching into her large purse. I assumed she was looking for her keys but instead she pulled out a water bottle and handed it back. Feeling compelled by her motherly ways, I unscrewed the cap and downed it.