The alley is a slit between two buildings, narrow enough that the sky above is a thin, starless strip of indigo. A neon sign from the bar on the corner bleeds through the gap, casting sickly green pulses over the wet asphalt—rain ended an hour ago, but the air still drips with it, thick and metallic, like old blood. The walls are pocked with graffiti, half-scrubbed tags and a faded mural of a bird with one wing, its eye a chipped piece of mirror that glints when the neon flickers.
Backdrop Sounds:
A distant jukebox warbles a scratchy jazz tune from the bar, the vocals muffled to a hum. Dripping—slow, deliberate—from a rusted downspout, each drop plinking into a puddle that mirrors the neon, turning the green light to ripples. A rat scurries behind a overflowing dumpster, its claws skittering on plastic, followed by the crunch of a crushed soda can. Her breath—short, shallow, fogging in the cold—interrupts the silence, too loud in her own ears. A car backfires three blocks away, and she flinches so hard her shoulder knocks into the brick wall, sending a shower of loose mortar clattering to the ground.
She’s leaning against that wall now, her spine pressed to the rough brick as if she might melt into it. Her coat is too thin for the night, sleeves pulled down over her hands, fingers knotting together inside the cuffs. She checks her phone—no service, 11:07 PM—then shoves it back into her pocket, the movement too sharp. Her eyes dart: to the alley mouth, where the streetlamp buzzes and flickers; to the fire escape above, its metal rungs sagging with rust; to the mural’s mirrored eye, which seems to watch her.
Seven minutes late, she thinks, and the thought tastes like ash. What if they don’t come? What if they do?
Her free hand drifts to her throat, where a locket hangs under her shirt—cold, smooth, the hinge worn from years of opening. Inside is a photo: a child, maybe five, with her same wide eyes. She hasn’t looked at it in months, but she can still see the smudge of chocolate on the kid’s cheek, the way the sun caught her hair. This is for her, she tells herself, but the lie feels flimsy, like the mural’s bird—broken, half-vanished.
A sound: footsteps. Not the rat’s skitter, but boots, heavy, deliberate, echoing off the walls. She freezes. The neon flickers, and for a second, the alley is pitch black. When the light returns, there’s a figure at the mouth—tall, broad, face shadowed by a cap. They stop, and she can feel their gaze on her, even through the dark.
Her heart slams so hard she thinks it might crack a rib. She fumbles in her coat, pulls out an envelope—thick, sealed, no return address—and holds it out. The figure starts moving again, closer, and she notices the glint of a knife in their hand, or maybe a key.
Too late to run, she thinks, but she doesn’t step back. The envelope trembles in her fingers. Too late for anything but this.
The figure is ten feet away now. The neon flickers once more, and in the dark, she whispers, “You have the information?”
No answer. But the footsteps keep coming.
The mystery lingers—what’s in the envelope? Who is the child? What information does she seek?—as the alley swallows the sound of their meeting, the green neon pulsing, the drips plinking, the world outside the slit of sky oblivious.