The Obscure Side

 

Tock...
Echo...
Tock...
Echo...

Repeatedly, the hard wooden sole echoed through the deserted, dimly lit street. The cold, dry night prolonged and stretched into the emptiness the echo of his footsteps.

Where was he? Where was he walking? It mattered little. He always ended up in the same place—to nowhere. His purpose, only one: to lose himself.

As he walked, his thoughts lost themselves in a single feeling, falling into the void, swallowed up.

Not to see, not to hear, to walk.

Without noticing, little by little, the worn intensity of the lights was gradually withdrawn. The streetlamps went out, slowly. Walls and houses lost their substance.

He continued on, blind, deaf.

Tap...
Vvv...
Tap...
Vvv...

A new echo resounded...

Tap...
Vvv...
Tap...
Vvv...

This one settled within him, like gentle caresses upon one who sleeps. It awakened him slightly, stemming the flow of thoughts that ran straight toward alienation.

He raised his head and looked. Behind him and before him, the streetlamps were extinguished, concealing the silhouette of the houses and filling the ends of the street with blackness. But, on the opposite side of the street, a streetlamp projected its bright white light upon the bent back of a man.

He wore dirty, worn-out rags. His greasy hair spread in a rebellious dishevelment. His hands, grey with earth, raised a pointed chisel that dragged itself across the wall.

Tap...
Vvv...
Echo...

He looked at the man, looked at the wall, saw it furrowed with hundreds, thousands of words. Words crowded together, without any syntactic connection. From them, only their own morphological meaning could be extracted—obscure, singular, exclusive.

Interwoven with the fricative echo produced by the scraping of the chisel came the dull, worn sound of the man's voice.

"I was waiting for you," said one.

"I was looking for you," said the other.