Phan Oneshots

Halloween on Sybil Street

In keeping with tradition, here’s a little something for halloween. Last year i wrote knock three times (which is a lot better put together so go read that) and this is the same sort of thing, but i guess a little different. Let me know what you think!

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Water dripped nonchalantly from the drainpipe and seeped into the seams of the street where paving stones met tall grey walls. It was a ticking clock for the man whose feet splashed on the wet tarmac. He was walking down the centre of the road and, for this time of night, it didn’t seem strange. The yellow light from the lamps that lined the alley made the standing water glisten, and the melancholy dripping was almost mellifluous to the stranger’s ears. If he listened carefully, he could hear the beating hearts of Sybil Street.

Inside number sixty, two bodies frail with old age slumbered close together, their breathing short and raspy. Number sixty-three emitted paint fumes from a bout of creativity still drying on the canvas. Behind the yellow door of sixty-four, a whole litter of puppies stirred and shifted in their sleep, packed tightly together against the warmth of their mother’s belly.  A phone was ringing incessantly in sixty-six, but there was no movement to answer it.

Through the brickwork of seventy-two, a young man raged. Curse words flung across the room like crockery and finally a fist connected with the wall. A woman, younger even than he, stood motionless and watched. Above the hum of the night air, the tall man in the street could just make out her words. Don’t take it out on the wall, she was saying quietly. It’s always been supportive in the best of ways.

The tall man listened with interest, his long coat flapping in the breeze.

Seventy-three held a man with a pipe and a rocking chair that creaked. Seventy-four was lorded over only by a black cat who prowled the house, small paws making almost no sound on the thick carpet. Her heart beat fast. What business was she attending to, the tall man wondered?

The patch of grass in front of seventy-four was strewn with cardboard boxes, sodden and wilting in the rain. Through the gap in the curtains, the tall man could make out three figures perched on sofas, engaged in animated conversation. The faint tones of a Bach piano concerto drifted through the window panes, and he contemplated the cause of their gathering - in a front room of Sybil Street at three in the morning.

The road was quiet and empty, submerged in night time but not yet asleep. Green plastic bins lined the street like soldiers in a neat row, but the sentinel outside seventy-eight lay flat on its face, slain by a gust of wind, perhaps, or another stranger in the night. It seemed a little morbid, the tall man thought, that the other bins could stand so straight and proud with their fallen comrade just a few metres away. His lips twisted into a grin. As he walked, he reached a smooth hand into his jacket pocket and turned his head away from the darkened doorsteps and up towards the clouds. The moon hung full and heavy in the sky, but he was searching for stars. Tiny pinpricks in the orange fabric that ballooned over the city. A sheet weaved by the glow of headlights and streetlamps and a hundred thousand beings afraid of the dark. The tall man didn’t mind the dark. Without it, he wouldn’t be able to see the stars.

Behind the buildings, somewhere to his left, a police siren wailed.

He was getting closer now, and he walked with more purpose. He nodded his head slightly at the beautiful tri-tone created by two women sobbing in number eighty, and at the introduction of a new drainpipe drip, but for the most part he concentrated on the road ahead. The glow of the streetlamps sent pools of gold and yellow pouring down around their grey feet, the parked cars casting long, black shadows. At fox watched him pass with brown eyes, its tail twitching.

Number ninety was just two houses ahead. His hand tightened on the cold metal in his pocket.

Eighty-eight held three children in various states of fitful slumber, their mother pacing the living room, cup of coffee in hand despite the late hour. Eighty-nine was filled with too many students for the four small walls. Inside number ninety, only one person stirred. The stranger halted and gazed at the door. It was a cheerful red colour, but the paint was starting to peel at the edges and the letterbox was off centre, as if screwed hastily back in place. The tall man strode forwards, stooping to collect the key from the gaudy gnome that guarded the door. He slipped it into the lock, careful not to make a sound.

Inside, his victim shifted his weight onto the other foot.

The hall was dark and there were no lights lit downstairs. The tall man stood motionless, scarcely breathing, to listen. Above his head, quiet footsteps paced a square room. He closed the door behind him.

The third stair creaked. And the eighth. At the top of the stairwell, he leaned his head cautiously around the wall to peer down the landing. It was lit only by faint yellow light spilling out of a crack in the second door on the right. The tall man took a steadying breath and pushed his dark hair away from his face. Despite himself, his heart was fluttering a little in his chest. Adrenalin was beginning to make him tremble and he cursed silently as he fought to steady his outstretched hand.

He placed first one foot and then the other, pausing after each step to listen. The man in the bedroom breathed steadily and without labour. He had seated himself now, perhaps on a chair or the edge of a bed. Paper rustled. The tall man took another step.

In the bedroom, all was still. The man who sat on the window ledge, breathing gently and absorbed in a Bukowski novel, had brown hair and brown eyes. He was tall, but his gangling limbs were curled up on himself and he had a blanket pulled up to his chin and tucked around his shoulders. He did not seem scared. Had he heard the intruder? Did he know who stood, shrouded in shadow, outside his bedroom door?

The tall man hesitated a little longer outside the room. The position of his victim had caught him off guard. From that vantage point, he would see the door opening in enough time to react. He could even have something concealed under the blanket, the tall man mused, which would complicate matters. The man in the window seemed content not to move and, for now, so was the tall man in the corridor. He would wait, he decided, for brown eyes to make the first move.

~

The tall man’s legs were stiff and his back ached from standing rigid by the time the figure on the windowsill moved. He closed the book with a contemplative frown, and yawned. With a stretch and a wince, he unfolded his limbs and slipped down onto the carpet. It was as he was turning to fold his blanket that the tall man made his move. He pushed open the door as swiftly yet silently as he could and took three steps into the room, raising his arm. Eyes wide, he squeezed.

The bang shattered the silence and the brown haired man gasped.

He span around just in time to see the cascade of streamers fall around the tall man’s shoulders where he now crouched on one knee, a ring in one hand.

“Dan Howell,” The tall man asked, a tremor in his voice. “Will you marry me?”