Long Walk, The by Beast

Every single day I have to walk the same route, and it’s always dark. It’s always at the same time-of-day, when the sun has already set and its light has gone, just the darkness penetrated only by the dim light of the dying sun.

The streets are almost empty except of a few people waiting for a ride or a passing car. Everything seems different, it gets colder as the winds start blowing, then a black curtain starts descending, covering everything in darkness declaring the reign of the night has begun. Everything seems so quite…too quite perhaps, it seems that it is an omen of a storm coming, but nothing happens…the storm never comes.

I walk in the shadows; always in the shadows…the nightly shadows leave an exceptional impression in the eye of the beholder, and keep me company in my lonesome journey.

I start walking my usual route, a long dark road ahead…I see someone coming my way, the streets’ lights behind her creates a strange feeling, I could see only a figure, an outline of a girl, but I can’t see her face, it’s covered by shadow. I continue walking until we meet at some point on the road but nobody stops, we both continued our journey.

I take a detour at the same point of the road I do everyday, I leave the road to enter a small maze of alleys, but I know my way…I like alleys, they are usually empty, even more empty than the streets at this time-of-day, I find alleys somewhat peaceful, nobody bothers me since there is nobody there…I leave an alley only to enter another alley…somebody is standing at a window watching me walk by, I could almost sense that he was afraid…of something…or someone? I continue my walk, until I see a child playing with his ball in the alley, then when he saw me he stopped, he just retreated slowly and stuck hi back to the nearest wall, I kept walking but as I walked I looked at his face and I think that I saw fear in his eyes, fear of someone who knows too much…but how much can a child know?

I continue my journey through the darkness, I leave the maze of alleys to enter another street, I see that there are some small shops open, and people just sitting –chatting- in front of those stores…a lot of lights…it looks like that those people are lighting as many lights as they can…it seems that they are almost afraid of the dark! I keep walking my way until I pass by them, then I notice that they stop talking and stare at me –trying desperately to see my face- as I go by, but they can’t…and how can they when I’m wrapped up with dark, walking in the shadows of the night. I couldn’t tell from the look on their faces if they were just curious or alarmed?

I leave the street with all the lights only to rejoin the darkness once more. Now I see my destination –not so far away-, I take the same walk everyday but still my destination is what I seek, it has never changed and neither the feeling it leaves in me when I reach it…peace-of-mind…after all; at the end of the day, I’m just another guy taking the long walk home.