Look at her. She stands on that subway platform every damned morning,
waiting -- as if someone was gonna meet her there. Her empty, frightened
eyes dart about, hoping, wondering if today will be the day...for what?
What is it she hopes she'll find? I know what I'd tell ya, little woman:
it's better not to look. Cause if there's anything out there that's
gonna meet those eyes of yours, then it's something you better run your
pretty legs off to get away from.
The crowd of the living, the Quick, bustles through the station.
By day, by night, thousands of real, live people, just walking past her,
walking through her, not noticing...blind to her shape, deaf to her shouts.
It's stopped making her nervous, at least. She's taken to standing
because it's freaky to have someone sit in the same seat you're in, to
have them sit through you. I know. It freaked me out, too.
I met her eyes once, ya know. Biggest mistake I made since those
thugs killed me for my coat, last year...was it a year? Never mind.
The thing is, I had to do it -- it was the pity, or maybe the anger, or
both. I just stepped right out letting the crowds phaze through me
like a river of holographs, and I looked into her pale eyes. I'M HERE!
I shouted it with my eyes, by whole self, everything that's left. NOW WHAT?
NOW WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? I wanted to scare her, to make her
run and hide and whimper like I would if someone did that to me. But instead
of being afraid, her pretty little face lit up, and her body came into
focus like it hadn't been in months. There was this hope in her eyes, and
it was the most terrible thing I've ever seen, ever! It was a hope
that, maybe, she wasn't alone, like she had thought. A hope that maybe
now, she could have a friend, or an enemy, or someone to chat with or walk
with or laugh with...just like in the Skinlands. Just like she wasn't
deader than a corpse.
Right, sweetheart. What the hell do you think -- that I'll waltz up, and
we'll talk a little, and that will ease the utter solitude of this death?!
And maybe after we talk, I'll agree to meet you on Tuesday. Yeah,
we'll do lunch. Stay dead, babe...hah. Fuck you.
I've tried it, babe, and it just makes things worse. After all...we're
just ghosts. Even to each other. We're pale echoes of what we once
were, but can never be again. I was a friend once -- and a lover,
and a father, and a son, and all that. I may look like I could be
a friend, or an enemy, or something. But I'm nothing, nothing at
all, just like you. The guy you though might be your friend, well he's
dead, and the only reason you even saw him is because he hates himself
to much to allow himself the luxury of Oblivion.
This is my hell, or my heaven, or whatever -- but there ain't no door for
you! You've got your own world, your own concerns. There's things that
bind us all here in these shadowlands, and ain't none of us able to connect
more than we do to those things, the things we can never touch but can
always see, and feel, and hear....
So dammit, remember that, girl! You saw it, too, just after that hope came
into you...if anyone else ever meets your pale eyes, it's to feed their
own lies, their own greed, their own damnable need that blocks out everything
else. And there are some things out there that will feed on your delicate
soul like carrion on a corpse.
After all, that's what I did, more or less. Used you to punish myself again,
like I've punished myself for so long...but I won't ever tell you that,
won't ever give you this warning.
You're dead, honey -- and there ain't no use talking to the dead....