The city
A city for monsters
Right, in theory, an advertisement like that was supposed to raise some suspicion. To tell the truth, in the city there were 15 buildings about 70 floors tall, but among them you’d choose only three to live in.
And anyway, you’d never moved there without an elevator. About the other buildings, you’d say that there were mirrored office- buildings, the kind of mirrored buildings that make you blind when you pass there in the morning trying to piss your dog.
The city got reflected head down. Sometimes it’s a matter of perspective, that’s all.
The city wasn’t that big, except for tens of empty buildings: speculative bubbles, eco- monsters, metaphors and similitudes of a world in apnoea.
Then, in this city holding its breath, you finally find someone ready to speak and even write. “The balance’s echos” was a newspaper founded by old lawyers. These golden retirees decided to put together a start-up, despite the age.
It hadn’t been an easy task to set up a newspaper in a city where everyone’s attention seemed to be attracted solely by the blue lights of their cellphones.
Adam was an old litigator and now he managed the columns of “Fish and Game”. No one knew where he found the inspiration, taken that there wasn’t any sea, lake, or river close by.
Who had the idea to make a city apart from everything, even malaria, in the first place?
Anita was a woman with a proud, fiery look in the eyes. Forme attorney, she was now in charge of the columns of crime news. Always feminist, she never stopped underlying the fact that behind each homicide, there was a man and never a woman.
Even the last homicide, she was sure there was a man behind it. To be honest, no one else thought that was a homicide. A man found dead after falling down the stairs. Police said he just slipped and fell accidentally, rolling down thirty-two steps of the stairs.
However, something strange about it: he died from a blunt in his head and police said it happened only when he arrived at the last step of the stairs. It couldn’t be strange if it didn’t happen the same exact thing to many other retirees in the last few weeks.
The newspaper was located in a basement, looking over a small square where used to park some ambulances. In this way, when inside the newspaper they heard the sound of many ambulances together, they knew something big was happening.
That night there was only Benito, a former tax attorney. He was quite a solitary man and he got two distinct columns. One, his favorite, was the obituary session and the other was the “buy-sell-rent” page.
In this last session, people bought and sold almost everything. As in that city, no one bought books anymore, but they always have money to buy bodies. Or corpses.
“I rent a room at the 72nd floor (no elevator).”
Anita continued to read and re-read that ad published in the newspaper the previous week. She felt there was a connection, even though she couldn’t prove it yet. She needed proofs, or at the police station, no one wouldn’t even pay attention.
She felt there was a serial killer around in the city, but it was just a sensation for now. Maybe, driven by its hybris, the assassin left that message and a new one was ready to be sent to the newspaper that week. She stood up all at once, determined to find out.
Anita lived on the third floor and the newspaper was based in her basement. Why she opened a newspaper instead of renting it to some students? No one knows.
She finally arrived in the basement and found Benito seated as always under his large lamp, his dirty hair over his face.
<<Hi, Benito!>>
The former tax attorney raised his eyes, nodded subtly to Anita and went back to his paper, moving the head as he was a big, old turtle.
Anita cleared her throat as to attract attention, at the same time adjusting her jacket. Anita never noticed how cold was that basement.
<<I’m so sorry, Benito, I need only an information. It happened to you to find an ad… how to say? Peculiar?>>
This time the eyes of the old tax attorney lit up with a strange, unusual light. He answered without raising his face.
<<No, not at all. Nothing strange.>>
He said, pursing the thin wrinkle at the side of his mouth. It was similar to a smile, for whom learn how to read his emotions.
<<But…still…all right, don’t worry. I will check tomorrow, have a good night.>>
Murmured Anita, going up the stairs again without receiving any answer. She couldn’t guess how many volumes are written about hate, how many cathedrals build over the repressed resentment.
There are desires hidden for years, ready to scratch the dream of an old tax attorney. She felt suddenly as someone pulled her from behind, the roof became the floor. She felt the sensation of the stairs, painful, on her spine. Then, finally, dark.
Yes, she got close, really close.
And so, Benito suddenly had a new ad to write. Oh, well, two in fact.
This story is property of Flyingstories and in the person of Daniele Frau. If you need to use the text and before any kind of reproductions, please confirm with the author.
