Chapter Five

How had that song gone? "The whole of the world is a great black pit, filled with people who are filled with shit..." At the moment, Archibald Hicks wholly agreed with what he could recall of the song. He staggered through the cold alleyway, muddling through the miasma of trash and trying not to wretch at the heady smell of waste, sewer steam, and dead things. He had dug through enough dumpsters to know the unnatural order of things. Dead fish in the trash bags, dead rats attracted by the smell, dead cats who had eaten the rats and died from the cold or disease at the very top.

But at the very bottom, beneath the fish? Dead men.

It was all so ridiculously Shakespearean! Murders, betrayals, executions... he supposed it was poetic justice. Staring up at the dark sky from betwixt so many immense structures, it was almost comical that we all ended up on the bottom anyway. Archibald took a swig of the whiskey he'd bought with his panhandling money. One may ask why he wouldn't simply buy food? Or a wash? Or clean clothes? In truth, panhandling was not a living. It took a lightning-bolt of destiny to bring a man back from rock-bottom. But while you're there, you may as well enjoy it. So the question becomes why not inebriate himself? After all isn't everyone, poor or rich, merely stumbling through life like he through this trash to an uncertain end? Are we not merely suffering through every waking minute merely to get a glimpse of some possible happy moments? And are not these moments, like the stage's limelight, only so brief, so transitory, it's almost as if they never existed? Someone once said "happiness is fleeting." Meanwhile the first Buddha said "All life is suffering." The truth of it all.

As he turned a corner, his knee crashed into a nearby trashcan and he clenched his fingers around the bony appendage, nearly dropping his whiskey. As he settled against a wall, hissing in pain, he almost began to laugh at the sheer tragedy that had been his life. Ten years ago he had graduated with a degree in the Arts, and moved across the country performing plays and musicals from "Hamlet" to "Sweeney Todd," and from "Les Miserables" to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Five years ago he had become a moderately-successful writer, having sold a few plays from his apartment. Two years ago he had broken his hand during a nasty fall through a manhole (for which he had never been compensated) and had considerably limited his writing. Last year he had lost his apartment along with all of his worldly possessions. It was a slippery slope. "I am not bother-ed" he recited after his chuckling had died down.

As he dropped the bottle from his lips after another gulp, he heard the sharp crash of glass on concrete. His half-drunken eyes flashed open and he looked down at his own bottle. Thank Heavens. It was still intact. But now he was keenly aware of the source of the crash: around the corner, several men were congregating.

"Jesus Christ, you wanna ring the goddamn doorbell Andy?" This one was gruff, but worried. As a veteran actor, he could tell instantly about people. "Aw, Christ, why did you make us drive all the way out here? That stupid fucking alarm goes off twice a week for the maid service, and half the time he forgets it's even on and trips it himself." Andy carried the bottle's confidence. "We know that, but it's an alarm for a reason, man. This is what we get paid for. Let's hope it is just the maid." A noble guard-dog, this third one. Ah, Benvolio.

While the actual contents of the conversation had no real significance to him, his mind snapped into shape as he heard the unmistakeable slide-click of a pistol being cocked. In that instant, everything seemed important. How far away were they? Did they intend to come closer? What did these hoodlums want? What alarm, and who was this boss of theirs?

Archibald took another look skyward, and glimpsed the edge of a sign painted on the alley wall, just above the dumpster: "Fourkes Building Waste ONLY. Violators will be prosecuted." Oh my. He had stumbled into the seedier section of the "financial district." Perhaps the drink had not served him quite so well on this night. Even so, he still had half the bottle to spare. Gathering every ounce of stealth, grace, and strength he could muster with his wounded knee, he attempted to sneak back the direction he had come, around the corner and back to the safety of the dumpsters and the already-dead. He promptly crashed into the same trash can, knocking it over and noisily spilling the contents all over the alley and himself. And to make matters worse, his bottle had shattered on impact with the hard earth. Oh Hell.

The three thugs came streaming around the corner like vultures circling their prey. Andy, Benvolio, and the first to speak whom he had subconsciously dubbed Moe. The impact of his head on the pavement had sent him spinning, and their questioning screeches of protest came off as simply that. However his eyesight had not been quite so impaired, and the metallic sheen of the handguns shone brightly. Archibald could only fall on instinct, which was to say "I'm leaving" weakly, and attempt to crawl away. His speech came out garbled, and his crawling was especially painful on his bruised knees.

The three stooges began to jab and kick at him, forcing him on to his back before crunching him up against the wall of the alley. After their moment of triumph, and realization that he was not their intended target, the group turned away from him. Each bone in his body took its turn screaming and burning in pain. So much so that he could have certainly imagined the light creak and clink of the fire escape above him, followed by a falling, black star.

As his vision began to clear, he realized that it was not a star at all, but rather a bag of some sort. It landed on top of Moe, who manged to catch it and briefly wonder about its origin. However another object came falling out of the night. This time a creature. Perhaps a stone gargoyle or some immense black panther. The creature landed crushingly on Moe, and proceeded to attack Benvolio and Andy. The metallic flashed again, but this time was outmatched. The two thugs fell almost instantaneously with two twin flashes and cracks of gunfire.

The creature, still indistinguishable to Archibald's recovering senses, rose to its feet with its back to him. It was enormous, clad in a black leather jacket. A large revolver shone in the moonlight briefly as it returned to the jacket from whence it had come, and it rubbed its shoulder. It was more of a cursory check, an assessment, than a gesture made from pain. Surely this creature could feel no pain, or remorse, having so swiftly and deftly upstaged the other three men.

Moe groaned, somehow still alive. The man-beast turned slightly, allowing Archibald to see a glimpse of its face: wrinkled and scarred like a predator that had survived to old age. "Tyger, tyger, burning bright..." his mind recited.

With single, simple motion, the man- it must be be a man, he thought- lifted his boot high and crushed Moe's throat beneath it. Moe twitched grotesquely a moment, and lay still. Exit, stage left. The man lifted his large black bag from Moe's corpse and slung it over his shoulder. He turned as he did so, noticing Archibald out of the corner of his eye. He stared, still hungry.

Archibald realized how loudly he had been breathing and slowly crab-walked to the wall of the alley. He put on his best face and spoke, as he had trained so hard to, without fear. "Don't mind me. Just a common bum passing through. I taste terrible." He whispered the last part.

The man turned away again, hefting the black bag over its shoulder and walking calmly into the dark of the alley, opposite the way Archibald had come.

It was like living in the wild, he thought. But the concrete around him quickly changed his theory. No, it was more like a zoo. Living like animals in a zoo. But thinking back to the way the man-creature had simply faded away into the murk, his mind changed again. Not a zoo, but an aquarium, and we are all the fish. The barracuda are fierce and powerful, preying on the little fish. Until they meet the Great White.

Archibald Hicks, now sobered by fear an exhilaration, scrambled to his feet and began weaving back the way he had come. Or rather, any way other than the way the predators had come and gone. The song had come to him, and he sang quietly under his breath, lest he bring the great fish back. "The whole of the world is a great black pit, filled with people who are filled with shit, and the vermin of the world inhabit it... But not for long..."