Tera's Digest - Curse the light

Yet more stuff! This story actually has two versions, both of which you'll be able to see. There are numerous key differences, but both were done under time constraints as a speed writing exercise with a visual stimulus.
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Light, narrow rays of sun. Even sheltered between two high walls accursed illumination pollutes the street, falling down and being greedily devoured by the cool cobblestones. The sun heads inexorably up the east towards its crescendo in the midday sky. Impure, impure.

The night has left its mark on this little corner of a world - here a spilled drink, there someone lost their keys. The landscape stretches into the distance, winding, winding through the rise of mortar and stone that flanks the vision and yet protects from harsh light, harsh hope. The city is silence.

In shadow he stands, to any observer lost in a reverie with open eyes that yet see nothing. Although the fingers of light reach out to touch the rest of the alley, they shy away from a darkness within, he muses. Number zero, the fool, the fool.

Impure, impure.

A noise, finally, that homely click and bubble of coffee being brewed. He rises, peeling back from the layers of the mind and as if for the first time sees the landscape before him. Eyes focus, two worlds collide. Only one is real.

What is rea, outside the mind? The muse expresses, solely to himself as there is no audience. If so, then what is seen is not the truth for it is denied by the mind, only the sin, the sin. One scam too many, one trick that broke the back.

The light reaches at last, dispels the dark. He reaches into his pocket, draws a card. The magician. He laughs from the irony. Life rises with the sun. With great reluctance, he moves forward leaving the mind behind. To the piazza. Enough, enough, too much, too much. The world does not stop from the misery of one man.

Inventory. Check. Two decks of cards, a piece of string. Sleeves that hide conjurations as well as secrets. Three cups. It is all there, save the one missing piece. But that is unrelated.

Smooth the hair, clear the throat. Banish the thoughts, adjust the cat. Go outside to face the day, the day.

The mind has no place in the world of the living.
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From my vantage point I can see over the Wall to what lies beyond. Its shaded length blemishes the streets, a squat grey line like an open wound that oozes bereavement. From my vantage point I have but a glimmer of an idea as to what lies beyond, for the other side is as silent, as dead as this one. From my vantage point I can do naught but speculate and dream, and wish that I could see.

Each day begins in the same bleak waste, a graveyard of essays, pages and books, the relics on an era that died with a man. It all came to naught in the end.

To the day I still rise, eyes torn from the skies, my heart with a hole in it. The past left to die, I dress to face life, shoulder the weight and begin. A shot of coffee acts as a vaccine against the contagious despair that catches the streets. My life can have no such distractions, no overarching worries like everybody else has. What to me does it matter if the Enemy is trying to take our freedom? I am trapped already in this hell, the hell impotent I can leave if I try. But is it impotent, harmless, so why must I leave? Is there some greater purpose or need? It's not as if I can dream.

Ready. Check. Inventory. A golden watch, slightly dented. A piece of string, a deck of cards with those unmistakeable marks. Funny how a thing so arcane can have its own place in this world so mundane. Ironic, yes, but important? No. Continue. A box of matches and three small white balls. All in the pockets of a tattered overcoat. There is something missing, but that is unrelated.

Steel myself against the bracing wind and step outside to the alley. No sun can breach this so-dark receptacle, which of course is fitting in its own way. The light has been taken from this place. I take three tentative steps that echo in the silence and the cold dank air of the morn. I have left my vantage point like a crow leaving its roost, or like something yet leaves something else. My route takes me past the Wall and the tall building, and as it is the shorter of the two obstacles I am trapped between I gaze over, remembering what I saw beyond. No, it wasn't anything markedly different. Not that it matters at all.

The sun peeks out from behind its grey veil and with it the first signs of warmth. I shut it away and remember what it is I have lost, the loss born of my sin, my sin.

As it is yet so early I still have much time to prepare before I must begin to act and put on that jovial façade for the good of others. I take stock of my surrounds as I enter the plaza and decide where best to set stand. There are signs around that warn us of the Enemy. Sometimes I wonder if we really have an Enemy. Are we the enemy, the foe, come to take, to kill, to kill? Or perhaps the true Enemy is that thing in the sky that asks so much of our time and our life. It would certainly do, if we're looking for a scapegoat.

Nobody comes, nobody goes, and I miss the company. Shops are too busy setting up and they cannot offer that which I desire. Some things you can't buy, after all. I block despair behind The World.

Here will do, as good as any. A small placard does for advertising and a hat will do for donations. The sign marks well enough, they know what they do - come to see a Fool, a Fool.

It has been six minutes in setting up and the number six causes me to grimace at the thought. Still there are others like me and they would arrive early, too - indeed, some arrive even now. We greet each other quickly, and without warmth. My solitude seems a satisfaction to one other, as if he thinks he can understand. Such a joke, no? An anger rises, rises. I supress it, for it does no-one any good at all.

They laugh at what I do, and perhaps it is comical, for I can make children laugh or cry or be amazed or cheer or sigh. But they miss the performance - most adults do too, but they don't have the excuse. I have become no more than a number in twenty-three different numbers. It is my shield, it is my shell. It is the place I go to be alone.

Can I reduce it further? Can we all be numbers? Can we be an emperor, or a son? I mentioned this to an inspector once, in jest. He remarked we were better be brothers against an Enemy. I know how people feel. I did not question the nature of Enemy. Everything was more serious since that World crisis of '62, those three years ago. Even the children laugh less now.

Well, times change. Justice does too, it seems. Perhaps this conflict of interests and beliefs is what has lead me to my stand today.

Alas, the first rays of the sun wash over and the day it seems has truly dawned. Now there is motion, all of it meaningless but motion nonetheless. So I rise, prepared to begin. What to act, what kind of thing? It all seems concerned with the sin. Now I am here.

From my vantage point I can see no break in the endless lines to come. Yet I am sheltered. I am protected. The wall I build protects me.

I smile. From my vantage point, I am still safe.