Paper or Plastic?

Below in the street I saw the lights flashing. I didn't hear any sirens, but I remember the lights. As I sat reclined and reading my book (don't remember), I saw through my shuttered life thin streams of blue and red blinking through.

I sat there for moments marvelling. It was like a candy store. Pretty lights. Putting down my book, I reached over and carefully turned off the only light in the room, a small little bankers lamp I'd nail polished red sometime in the past for some obscure reason that failed me at present. As I placed my book down on the little table beside my recliner, I winced as the sound of it smacked ungainly down. I liked silence (still do). I carefully and slowly slid it to safety towards the center and listened to the soothing sound of it sliding across the wooden plateau to it's resting place. It belonged there just now, untethered, trusting it wouldn't move. I smiled a small smirking smile. It was well trained. They can be docile little creatures, no?

Slowly, I got up from my chair. Slower. Why hurry? Be in control. Listen and be aware of all. Know all the creaking of the floors above and below. Hear the rain outside patter uselessly against the apartments walls. Crying to get in. Listen to every cry. Hear their stories.

I strode slowly, comfortably, deliberately to the window. The source of blue and red wonder outside. Below me, three stories down sat two squat police cruisers, their lights on. I could hear them talking, but couldn't make out the words. I didn't have to. Between them, on the ground, lay a girl. Her arms and legs were splayed open, in surrender. Her crimson life was washing away and into a drain somewhere below me out of sight.

What was her name? Curly blond hair like Shirly Temple, only more wavy. Green eyes that could see forever. A timeless beauty. Now, she lay there face down in the alley, blue and red lights escorting her to the other side. I couldn't see her face, but I knew her hair. Nobody had hair like hers. I remember her watching me as I spoke to the newstand man once, not long ago. She had a penetrating gaze then, like she was trying to figure me out. When I turned to her, she maintained the look a few moments longer, then smiled politely before walking on. In another life. She reminded me of a Patti long ago, about the same age. I was in grade seven and had loved another curly blond-haired Patti. The last day of school I'd purposely missed my bus so that I could see her one last time before we moved. I never did see her again, but her vision haunts me still.

As I looked down to the form face down on the pavement, I wondered at that other Patti. What woudl she look like now? Had she married? Kids? Probably. And, likely overweight and depressed too. At least this Patti would be immortal. Sort of. Why couldn't you stuff children as you can pets so they never waste away to bones and slimy worm food? Well, no matter. Little Patti was off skipping somewhere, if there was a somewhere. That on the ground wasn't her. Not anymore.

I remember watching the television once. It's around here somewhere, I'm sure. I don't recall tossing it out. I remember watching the television once. A program on forensics. They said that crime dramas all used plastic bags to collect evidence in, but paper was better because it didn't trap water in and corrupt the sample. I don't know who uses paper or plastic, but as I looked outside, I saw only plastic.

Snapping the shutter closed, I mused a moment longer through the slit at all the hustle and bustle of the city. We are like ants in a colony that have voluntarily shut ourselves in solitary confinement. We poke our heads out from time to time to ensure we still live, that we are human and others talk and smile to us. Times like these my lips would tremble like a sneer, and I'd retreat into the safety of my shell and all my hard bound friends with stories to tell.

I have no stories to share.