Let's all write a story! (six pages up)

oh shit I completely forgot about this

edit: writing now

edit:

I had to be careful how this went. The postcard may have been a ruse to flush me out of hiding, to get my guard down. After all, I'd made alot of enemies since that day I died - that day I was born. But no, even if it was true - even if Mama Pidgin was dead - I would never let my guard down. I couldn't. Some things had just become instinct. Leave no ripples; make no splash. These had become the laws by which I lived, as unbreakable as the laws of physics.

So, I had to be careful how this went, because I couldn't be anything else.

I found myself at a payphone in Newark, New Jersey, snow coming down hard. Snow. That white stuff that covered up all the impurities and made even this stink of a town seem clean, as long as you didn't look up. I fished a quarter out of my pocket and fed it into the cold slot. Ka-chiink. I raised my hand to the dial and hesitated. How much had changed in these past eighteen months? How many friends had become enemies? How many more were still around? I shook off my doubts and punched in the number. The reciever pressed cold against my head felt familiar. The only thing missing was a trigger.

The phone rang a few times before going to voice mail:

"You have reached the home of Ali Mustafa, please leave --"

I hung up. Standing there in the cold of white, I closed my eyes. Things seemed ripe to go wrong. I could feel it in my gut. I was about to be shot. I was about to be stabbed. I was about to be strangled. They would take me in a windowless van and methodically dismember me, then gather me in a black garbage back - heavy duty - and throw me in a river, lake, ocean, bury me beneath a garage, in a construction site, in an abandoned lot. I was about to die. I'd been about to die for eighteen months. Being hunted was a terminal disease. Not a matter of if but when. I asked myself every day: "When will I die?" Every day the answer was the same: today.

I rubbed my hands together to warm up, but it's not like it helps when you're already wearing gloves. I picked up the receiver and plopped in another quarter and dialed again.

"Hello?" A man's deep, rich voice issued, sounding something like a porn star.

"Is it true?" I grumbled.

"Is what the hell true? Who the hell is this?" Angry. Impatient. Like I'd interrupted something.

"Mama Pidgin, is she dead?" I muttered, trying to mask my voice. Don't know why. Like I said, some things had become instinct.

A pause.

"Who the hell is this?" The man demanded, in a more hushed tone.

I hesitated.

"Selick."

Another pause.

"Christ," the voice finally sighed. "Yeah, it's true. Three days ago. even the pigs don't know yet. Where...where are you?"

"Nowhere. Thanks," I said, and hung up the phone.