Alfred's Apocalypse

When something bad happens, even the most respectable get damn voyeuristic. And as I pushed through the thicket of a crowd I chanted to myself,

I'm not one of them,
I'm not one them,
I'm not one of them.


I didn't even have a camera with me, my vision had been clear of that pounding fog for a couple of days, so there was no use for the camera, I never film anything good when I can see it. So I guess I was kinda celebrating this sudden spike in normalcy like it was some sort of damn holiday or something, my face permanently twisted into a sort of alligator mouthed grin.

It was early that morning, I woke up to the sound of a buzzing alarm instead of the sun crashing into the apartment and finally bouncing into my small cave of a bed, walled off by the stacks of old film reels I'd rescued from the mildewed underbelly of the theatre. I stumbled around, fearing that the squint of my eyes was the onset of an episode, but it wasn't, it was just a glob of sleep sand, or whatever the damn that stuff's called.

I hollered into the living room. The kid was sprawled sideways across her bed. I've learned she's a sound sleeper, not like one of those movie kids who wander around seeing ghosts in the night, or bounce around with angelic smirks at ungodly hours of the morning.

I fell into a sort of almost consciousness, as conscious as one can be at six AM, as I watered my soul with coffee.

"Can I have some?"
whispered a small voice.

Kids who drink coffee are five times more likely to get addicted to drugs. I'm sure of it.
"No."

She pouted.

I'd made of a small wallet out of film that was lying around the theatre, bits of its picture had been worn into a blur by the sun. In my rough hands, with the aid of duct tape it folded into a clumsy little pouch. I stuffed it with a couple of bucks and the phone number to the apartment and the theatre written on torn scraps of paper.

As we stood on the concrete platform I handed her a ticket and the wallet. She held the pouch neatly in her hands, flipping it around her fingers, admiring it. She was admiring it.

"This is so cool..." She breathed, holding it up to the light of yellowed pink blue sky.

The train came barreling in like a stallion, kicking up a wash of rain puddles and showering us in mechanical smelling wind.

"For emergency's only!" I yelled over the sound.

She looked at the money seriously, and nodded, biting her lips.

She through her arms around my hips, either trying to see if they really are as awkwardly narrow as they are, or, perhaps, though less likely, trying to give me a hug. I considered hugging back, instead it started to rain pigeons. Slick, shiny, rain covered birds fell out of the sky in masses, descending upon the station like a bomb brigade.

She leaped away from me with a startle, looking in amazement at the birds. I ducked my head and shoved my hands in my pockets, I'd seen enough Alfred Hitchcock to know this was no time for hugs, in fact, this was probably Watershed height's version of an apocalypse.

"Uncle Morton will pick you up at the station." I said to a jittery and fidgeting, lip biting Alien surrounded by a about a million damn birds.

"Does he still look like Elvis?" She asked, her head tilted and hands perched on her hips.

Our uncle Morton is an Elvis impersonator. He is also a plumber.

"Yes." I grimaced, surprised and ashamed at my own answer.

"Good." She added with a genuine grin.

That kid has a way of swallowing shit like candy.

Another army of pigeons landed around my feet.

"Get the hell out of dodge." I said to Alien.

"Huh?"

I sunk into the concrete, god did I feel like a dork.

"Go!"

She went, leaping onto the train just as it churned away, down the redline, taking that prematurely hot potato to her next location.

On Calloway a crowd had formed, hustling around a dead guy for their viewing pleasure these damn schmucks could come to the theatre for their viewing pleasure instead, and I wanted to holler at in each of their peering faces. I wanted to holler. That was a first, I usually prefer not to talk.

I made sure not to outstay my eye's welcome, only glancing for a moment and then climbing up the stairs of Watershed. More voyeuristic schmucks were lining the hallways, I nearly crashed into a man, who from the looks of how he was cradling his head in his grungy hands could have easily been the dude swimming in his own blood, dead in the middle of the street.

Locked inside the apartment, I brushed my hands up towards my face, dusting away the morning dew and pigeon feathers that had gotten caught in my stubble, which was really more of a forest now. And then I had the most unthinkable thought, and before long I was elbow deep in a box, subtracting a cracked mirror from its contents.

From the looks of it, I could have easily been the dude swimming in his own blood, dead in the middle of the street.