There haven't been trees in the city centre for over three hundred years and yet we hear the wind brush through unseen branches every night. I've always found it unsettling while the rest of my family either pretend to not hear it or say its relaxing, like being in the middle of a peaceful forest.
None of them have seen the shapes of bodies hanging from the streetlights or heard necks snap as they drop from the ghosts of the gallows that were here long before our little apartment. If I'm quiet enough I can watch the crowds gather and see the dead men beg for mercy before they fall.
I used to do this every night but last time someone in the crowd turned around and saw me. Their mouth gaped wide with a shriek I couldn't hear and they all stared at me, slowly walking away from the gallows as the hanging man wept with joy and faded into nothingness.
Now I can't look out any window at night without seeing their faces pressed so tightly against the glass that I can't see anything past them. I don't even want to know what will happen when I eventually need to go out at night but I have a feeling I'll replace the man I freed.
None of them have seen the shapes of bodies hanging from the streetlights or heard necks snap as they drop from the ghosts of the gallows that were here long before our little apartment. If I'm quiet enough I can watch the crowds gather and see the dead men beg for mercy before they fall.
I used to do this every night but last time someone in the crowd turned around and saw me. Their mouth gaped wide with a shriek I couldn't hear and they all stared at me, slowly walking away from the gallows as the hanging man wept with joy and faded into nothingness.
Now I can't look out any window at night without seeing their faces pressed so tightly against the glass that I can't see anything past them. I don't even want to know what will happen when I eventually need to go out at night but I have a feeling I'll replace the man I freed.
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