The little streets all seem too familiar. I step past the sliding doors and eye the many levels above my head. The metalic hand rails of each floor glisten and for a second I feel like I'm in the center of a small multi-layered cake looking upwards. The shoulders of faceless people brush past me as I stood there. Soft and loud canton words fill my ears with a touch of manderin. The little stores are filled with just about everything you could think of, from guns to accessories to shoes to porn to clothes to snacks to people. Like an ant farm but with humans.
A man with droopy eyes and crooked teeth pull me into his store. He shoves magazines into my arms and movies into my bag. I think about how to respond...*diu* I ran. The merchadise drops onto the floor and sprawl out like a huge fan. As the men around the mess notice the content, they dive for it.
After gaining a little distance I stroll around looking for fun things to buy, but feeling a little lost, I head for the elevator. Scanning through the many levels, I decide to head for the roof of the building. The doors open and I sneak a peak of the cloudy grey skies above the many sky scraping buildings. The doors close. I look at the numbers embedded onto the buttons of the elevator panel and they seem to jump from level 7 to 11 to 13 to 17 to 21 to R. Different from when i first walked in. I press 17.
The doors open at 21 and faces of yellow pour in like a bowl of chicken noodle soup without the noodles.
She pushes aside a man with a stained white collar shirt and tries to make herself comfortable. I give her three seconds of my time and with a squint I recognize her... " . . . . . . " ! I push aside a lady with a flower pattern shirt, drag two kids tugging on my quarter pants, and take the place of the man with the stained white collar shirt.
"I can't believe you're here!" I lie. "me neither!" we both walk out at 17.
The conversation feels natural, I tell her the same old questions I ask everyone else I bump in to: "how have you been? what are you up to lately? is so and so alright? how's wherever treating you?". She tells me she's been through a lot and it feels like the trouble never stops. So I tell her a joke about this one time someone did this and someone else did that and HAHAHA! The crowds around us begin to chatter and the noise grows louder and louder like a black volume knob reaching MAX.
I notice a white guy making his way behind my friend. Our eyes meet for a second, but not quite long enough for me to take a guess at what he's thinking. He was poorly dressed...random polo t-shirt with quarter pants. The thought 'you're just like everyone else huh?' passes through my mind and then a terribly loud noise disturbs my fashion senses. She lets out an ear drum meshing child like scream and grabs a hold of me. And for whatever horny reason, the one-second-stare-poorly dressed-white guy, approximately my age, is groping her behind and I feel the blood and adrenaline flow to the tips of my fingers.
I didn't give it a second thought...I slip out of her arms push the white boy away from her and jump him. I feel like I've gone caveman, "WOMAN MINE! YOU MESS, YOU DIE!". I sit on his chest and try to stop kissing his face with my fists, but as the amount of blood increase the amount of strength I use did the same. No thoughts of regret or guilt pass through me, only anger.
The front of my shirt tightens as i feel the cool air conditioned air seep through my back as I'm being thrown aside like a pebble on the road.
I feel insignificant, useless, pathetic, powerless, in front of this six foot giant. He looks at me with the intent to kill and I just smile, grab her hand and run. He must be the horny moron's father. Equally dull looking, equally pale skinned, but much more fierce. It feels stupid because I'm running from a potential rapist's father, and he's actually defending his little son's right to get his hard on in public. Skip the details, skip the comparisons, skip the metaphors, no time to enjoy the view when you're running away from tall mad red faced white man.
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