Cityscape, by Michaela Savell

 Cityscape 

Sounds of the city many stories below reverberated in my ears, pulsing slightly with each beep of a horn, each siren's call. Lights were streaming outside my apartment window like fireflies, darting with a hurried fashion and unsure swiftness. My eyes closed, breathing in the putrid scent of exhaust drifting up to the open window. It stung my nostrils, making them flare in with persistence. The sun's light was fading over to the west of the city, tainting the sky with sparks of purple and embellished red.
My hair fell in curled strands down may face, giving it a fey sort of look. My green eyes glinted softly in the summer wind, taking in the city life with a bored tendency. The same lights shown, the same smells arose, and the same musty wind hit my face like sandpaper. I turned my head away in distaste, letting the light from the living room envelop me with glowing fingers. The warmth and security of my little dwelling swirled around my legs, only to be caught up in the massive drapes of crimson grasped in my hand.
I let out a sigh, observing the lights below as they seemed to drift unconsciously without purpose, without life. My mind filled with trickles of thoughts, each one either solved of forgotten in the chaos of my mind. Eyes glimmering, I looked on the world with sorrowful eyes, wondering each fate of the soul driving each small bud of light.
The phone suddenly released me from my thoughts, jerking my head upwards. It was around dinner time; surely it was just a salesperson?
I lunged for it, mumbling into the receiver as I regained my posture. “Hello?”
My other hand remained fluttered over the top of the phone, poised to hang up. However, the voice on the other line was not the confident rumble of the average businessmen. It was the voice of a young woman.
“Who is this?”
I let my hand fall to my side, taken aback. I had never heard so much vulnerability in a human being's voice, let alone from someone I didn't even know.
“I'm Amber. Who is this?”
The voice came out in more of a squeak, cracking with each vowel. “My name is Molly.”
There was silence on both lines. I could hear the woman's breathing in the background, breaking every so often with a sharp gasp. For once, I didn't know what to do. A fragment of my heart was tempted to hang up, to go on with my life. Remembrance of things long past swirled through my mind, reflecting curtly the pain I myself had witnessed, the things I had once done...
I closed my eyes, listening to the woman's breathing. I could hear a sniffle, and a delicate ping as tears fell across the receiver. My heart was beating, reverberating with each thought, each slight movement. Whispers of my job filtered through my veins, forcing my arms to shake uncontrollably.
I jerked. No. I couldn't not think of that job. It was a thing of the past, buried many years under a pile of lies and pain. I had sworn to never go back. No, never. Never again.
Yet, as I felt the woman's delicate heartbeat through the phone line, memories became more vibrant than lost vows. A weak smile was already coming into light across my face. The street sirens, the painful call of the world, was fading in and out until only silence remained. Everything was changing outside; the city lights were burning brightly against the crepuscule falling like a cloak across the high rises, snuffing out the consistency I had once known.
Molly whispered something inaudible into my ear, rippling with sound. It was pale, putrid if you will. They were the words of the hopeless.
True compassion remained vibrant in my face as I just listened to the woman on the other line, her words spilling out like a river. Her voice was filled with desperation, only to be faded out by the underlying emotion of shame, streaking the roof of her mouth. It was like I could see through a tiny window to her heart, watching as each pain and horror beat down on it with blades and axes. There were many spots where soot and ashes coated the surface, while other sections were so shattered that a thin thread of scarlet wrapped it together, desperately holding on.
“Where did I go wrong?” the woman, Molly, suddenly asked.
I breathed in the sweet words, drinking in the past. My job; the thing that I had loved.
“You can't save everyone, Amber,” my coworker said. “But those you do save are the ones that you will forever remember.”
If only those comforting words had not fallen on deaf ears. My vision was becoming blurred as one stray hair fell across my face, the circlet clinging to the moisture. Was it fear that had held me back, all of these years? Was it the regret I had so often felt, clinging to my insides like a leech? It was an emotional barrier that had been forming for years, a defense that I thought would last forever. A light flickered across my vision, igniting my dulled green gaze. It was a firefly, flickering weakly in the dusk.
I could still hear the woman on the other line, expecting me to hang up. However, I instead hung on, not letting the firefly out of my sight. Plans for tonight were forgotten, drifting to the back of my mind. I clenched the glowing bug gently in my hands as I placed into a sealed glass jar; its final enclosure.
Things were meant to be this way. Only in this moment did I realize it.