A small light flickers blue-yellow briefly and is snuffed as abruptly as it sparked into existence. There is a brief rustling as Ganeka shifts his crouched weight in order to maintain circulation. He must be ready to run, cigarette or none. Numbness is not an option.
A streamer of red tarmac punctuates the darkness, haltingly highlighted in places by amber lamplight. Only the soft electric lamp-buzz and gentle hiss of distant traffic suggests the physics of sound still operates in this still, unreal panorama.
A bicycle distantly silhouettes the path. The rider has attached no lamps to his bicycle, and thus relies solely on the continuity of electron flow through the street-light infrastructure to reliably navigate. This selfish, unprepared assumption annoys Ganeka.
The space between the hunter and the hunted closes slowly. The faint squeak of unoiled chain on cogs reinforces the riders carelessness, and sloth. Eventually, he will be parallel to Ganekas concealed position. Ganeka will line up his modified air pistol, and take several shots. Ganeka will clean up this town. He will not take the easy aim for the torso, but will aim to give that disused brain matter a bit of an airing. Ganeka plans all. It will be easy, and just perfect.
Three shots, and the bicycle falls. Ganekas sweaty grip will not allow for any further rounds to be released, so the gun falls fulfilled to the ground, and an excited Ganeka runs unconcealed from shrubbery, ignorant of the tears and scratches he accumulates as he ignores sharp buds and thorns, to inspect his sociological amendment.
The sound hits him first. Strange scratching as the rider bows and twists, hands over his face, stray gravel scraping beneath him, as he gradually moves closer and closer to the edge of lamp-light and the consequential obscurity.
Ganeka stands back, unsure whether it is horror or fascination that he feels. He imagines that he has transformed this zero of a man from an unmeandering path: From the Alpha of birth to the inconsequential Omega of old age. To this writhing snake-like creature that for a brief moment, understands the value of the path.
As the creatures fingers briefly part from its face, Ganeka catches a glimpse of the darkness that was once an eye, a liquid echo of the opening and closing wound of a mouth that can no longer vocalise.
He watches the serpent retreat, the scuffling less voracious, the effect logarithmic to the effort; an ever-declining mathematical graph of time versus life.
Finally, only a foot and part of a leg remain in the red tarmac domain as stillness passes, and the buzz of lamplight, and the hiss of distant traffic returns.
Ganeka gently pushes these remains into invisibility with the toe of his boot, his final part in this transition. He stands on the cusp of darkness for a few minutes, contemplating this tenuous place.
Ganeka: Intermediary between life and death.
Cheerio. He says.
- Simon Huggins, 9th April 2003