1st Excerpt from Stainless Perpetuity

Stainless Perpetuity
1st Excerpt from 1st Chapter
By Lore Crow

      St. Charles was deserted this time of night. I loved to walk down the avenue in the cool rain on a hot summer night when no one was around. No umbrella; just me and the humidity. The beautiful old university where I’d recently began taking night classes shimmered in the soft drizzle as I approached it. Walking was quite difficult for me ever since the accident but I couldn’t fathom a stationary way of life. To be bedridden signaled a slow but steady demise in my opinion.

      The doctors wanted me to stay in bed; they said I wasn’t yet healed. They scolded me for beginning classes and not subscribing to a lengthy period of rest and recovery. My left hip and leg had been virtually shattered. It was a miracle I could walk at all they said. I’d been struck on this very sidewalk by an out of control vehicle, but I tended to face my fears head on instead of lying cradled in my room, sheltered from reality, blankets pulled across my head. Many months in the hospital didn’t dampen my spirits; it ignited the flame of survival and urgently promised life anew.

      I stopped in front of the picturesque campus; it looked haunted at night. I sensed more than felt something behind me. I turned quickly but no one was there. Then my eyes caught sight of a lone male figure standing just inside the dark entrance to Audubon Park. He was watching me. Guess I’m not the only one who loves late night rainy walks along this avenue. I couldn’t make out any of his features but he was very still; serene was the word that came to mind actually.

      The trees, palms, shrubs, and flowers around the park’s entrance seemed to shroud him almost protectively as if he were a prominent figure of the park itself and nature paid its respect to him by leaning in close, attentive, and watchful. Then he moved and began walking toward Jefferson Avenue just as the streetcar came clanging down the track in a haze of thickening fog. I hadn’t noticed the growing fog until then. When the streetcar departed, I looked to see where the lone man had gone but could no longer see him. Fog now enveloped my path home with an ethereal quality.

      I had to walk in the same direction as he and I prayed that he was an ordinary man and not some type of predator who was given to using nighttime New Orleans as a rich hunting ground. I’d make easy prey with my cumbersome limp and awkward gait. Even though we were uptown, where crime wasn’t as plentiful as in other parts of the city, I was quite certain that relative aspect was not promising in the way of actual safety.

      I’m not a beautiful woman, but I’m better than plain I’d bet. I don’t think highly of myself but victims come in all shapes and sizes, so who am I to think I’m above being a victim. I don’t want to be a victim, but when it comes down to it, victims rarely have the opportunity to do anything in the heat of the moment except become one. Take my accident for example, there I was just strolling along, and then what seemed like a heartbeat later – I was lying in a hospital bed. I’d been an accidental victim once and I don’t fancy being the target of a purposeful one.

      I walked slowly, feeling absurdly out of place suddenly. Like a blind woman, I prodded my way along the patches of fog, my senses fine-tuned to the surroundings outside the walls of vapor. I picked up my pace as I felt a presence, but I couldn’t pinpoint its location. I came to my street, stepped up quickly onto the uneven sidewalk, and then my bum leg gave. As I fell, I felt like a fool, until a strong dark hand reached from behind me through the darkness to pluck me up. My heart raced as, simultaneously, something sharp pricked the side of my neck before I was even standing fully erect. Horrified, my adrenaline kicked in, I turned to see who the hand belonged to, and as I looked into a pair of obsidian eyes, the impending adrenaline recoiled, my body went limp, and then … I felt and saw nothing at all.