Neon signs fill walls of emptiness and smoke lingers with nowhere to go, colliding with dust and dampness in the air. A man sits in a poorly lit bar, shadows hiding his face.

The woman behind the bar has tired eyes, red from smoke and swollen from sleepless nights and a lifetime of making the wrong choice. Bleached hair sits high on her head in a messy bun, threads of thin hair curling tightly around her neck. A shirt stained with sweet liquor fails to hide skinny legs and pale skin covered with broken blisters and flaking flesh. Another sad victim of the antagonist.

“What are you having sweet’ums?”

The man at the bars eyes move up the woman’s arm, bouncing from each track mark, finally reaching her pale, tired face. His gaze narrows before his eyes slowly roll back to his own hands, sitting in tight fists on the bar. Unhindered, the woman walks away from him toward the other side of the bar.

A man and woman burst into the room, laughing in an unfamiliar way that makes the man’s head pulse and his lips curl with contempt, displaying a perfect row of straight, but slightly yellowed teeth. The smoke muffles the laughter and then it dies completely as if the couple accidentally stumbled into the wrong bar. The woman turns her body slightly toward the man, whispering something in his ear. He takes her by the hand, and with a look of understanding, pulls her toward the door. They leave.

The man with shadows on his face stands and pulls three dollars from his pocket, placing it on the bar top. The bartenders eyes stay fixated on his silhouette and she whispers, “didn’t even buy nothing.”

He walks toward the door, limping to the right in an inconspicuous way, battling the pain in is knee and the pride in his heart. Outside, sheets of rain fall from a black sky, pelting his face and long black coat. It is late and curfew is in effect. The thought of getting stopped by the MP causes an unwilling tightening in his jaw and temperamental flare of his nostrils. Fear quells anger as the pain in his knee moves long ways up his thigh, as if to remind him of the tangent danger in what should be a trivial inconvenience for a person such as himself. Violent images of skin and blood-soaked tar flash through his mind, still images of justice.

The man walks through the dark streets, keeping his head low and his pace as fast as his leg will allow. He knows these streets well. Cracks in the pavement run like veins through the street, the heart of which cannot be found. Empty food cans complement cigarette butts and once important parts of ink stained paper line the streets, constant reminders of inescapable poverty.

A man across the street stands hunched over, with his penis in one hand, and an empty can with a stewed tomato label in the other. He’s shaking himself violently, cupping the can around himself so the walls of it rub against his bruised penis. He grunts under his breath, crying and shaking his hand. Blood drips from the edge of the can. Stewed tomatoes.

The man with the shadows on his face finally reaches large iron gates to the Well Living Suites, the rain stops. He notices now how wet and cold he is, rain having soaked through every layer of clothing and saturating his skin. He draws his eyes slowly upward, noting the ornateness of the gates surrounding a mile square area of land, a barricade from the filthy part of town which he is forced to visit every day. He reaches into the breast pocket of his trench coat and pulls out a gold wallet, a gift from the Chief of Precinct A40.

He presses the gold plating to his warm cheek to remind himself of his own importance. Pulling it away from his face, the man presses a button on the clasp of the wallet and a small platform slides away from the frame. He presses the fleshy part of his thumb on the plate. A green light glows underneath his thumb. The wallet softly clicks and opens from lucrative hinges. He pulls out his Well Living identification card and holds it up to a small black bar next to the gate’s brass handles. An electronic voice says, “Access granted. Welcome, Mr. Peel.”

A subtle inhale of breath draws in from behind where the wet man stands in front of the gates. He turns his head slightly to listen for movement. The gates slowly lurch open. He steps inside, slowly, his leather shoes pressing against the wet pavement.

The stewed tomato man runs toward the heavy iron with his arms in the air and his flaccid penis flopping from side to side with each step. A look of fear fills his empty eyes. Mr. Peel’s hand moves upward to warn the man, but as his sense takes hold of him, lowers it to his side with disgust. Just as the man enters the threshold between the dirt of the inner city and the paved sidewalk of the Inside, a hardly visible flash of blue light moves from the gate to the man’s body. A faint sound leaves his mouth, the sound of air being pushed from his lungs, and he falls motionless to the ground. Smoke rises from his body, mixing with steam from the cold, wet ground. Mr. Peel inhales the smell of burning flesh and the sweet dampness of the October air.

The man with the shadowed face turns to go home.

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