When she has heard what he said, she is swept outside of herself, as if she is becoming the city itself, growing veins of asphalt circulating with dramas and suffocating dreams.The incessant monologue on the nature of cities that haunted her thoughts ever since she moved here, come to possess her flesh!

She wavers on her feet when a woman, attired in wrinkled secondhand clothes, steps alongside. Cookie crumbs cling precariously to the woolen curve of her pendulous breasts, litter the collar of her coat. It is unfathomable choice for a sweltering day, and she gapes at the woman who then asks the man: "Are you the one?"

Now the window washer is thoroughly confused; his lunch is a violent stew in his stomach. He is wishing he had called in sick today. He worked long hours to get away from the crazies in his apartment complex and now he has to deal with them at work, much less three in less than ten minutes!

The suit said that a woman would lessen his chances, whatever they were. And there were two of them. Joshua looks at the women, one beautiful and nervous, the other grey and ugly but composed of a patient vitality. He decides to say nothing, to forget it all happened.

He steps into his rig and starts the mechanism that reels him up into the blindingly blue sky. The women's upturned faces are unreadable as he ascends until the city, alive and concrete, is reduced to an abstraction.

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I wanted this piece to have a slight kafkaesque feel to it. Please feel free to contribute in anyway you wish. Just make sure the new pieces are small enough. 100 - 200 words, so it doesn't give the story an absolute direction.

updated Feb 18 '09 by ixarux