A Little Bit More

I've really been putting this off, but here is a bit more of that short story. I started at the begining because it has been so long.

The Trains

He stood hunched-over, gasping for breath, exhausted and desperate in the damp blackness at the top of a stairwell in an ancient apartment building. Alan Austen squinted in the dimness trying to see the name on a door. Catching his breath, he found it. Miss Elena was written in tiny black letters on the third door from the top of the stairs, where Alan was standing. Pausing before he knocked, he grabbed a slip of paper from the pocket in his shirt. He stared at the yellow flier, scanning its text intently: Miss Elena- Séances, palm-reading, hypnotism- fair rates- 43-987 Butler Avenue.

The Butler Ave El-train roared by. Suddenly, Alan became overwhelmed with anxiety. He was about to turn around and run down those stairs, and leave that building, and the neighbourhood forever, when he heard a sound on the other side of the door.

A widening vertical band of brilliant, orange light shone on Alan and the hall behind him as the door slowly opened. Alan froze. When his eyes had adjusted to the brightness, he saw standing directly in front of him an old woman dressed in black and gold.

"What are you stand there for?" shouted the heavily accented figure. "You come in, or go away! I no want people stand there!"

Still half amazed, Alan managed to stammer something half comprehensible. "I uh, yes. I'll come in... Should I?... ok then."

The woman in the door, interested at the sudden prospect of a new customer, immediately became a shrewd dealer. "For you, forty dollar per hour. Minimum two hours. Complimentary mind reading. My very best deal."

"Forty dollars an hour for what? I've never exactly done this before. I'm not exactly the type. I've always thought of myself as-"

"Forty dollar for séance with dead person," the woman interrupted, her heavily lined face becoming visible to Alan as she leaned forward to whisper the last words. Stepping back into silhouette, she boomed, "You come in, or what?!"

"Yes, of course," Alan replied without pause, fearing the woman was becoming annoyed with him.

At that, the old woman grabbed Alan’s arm and dragged him into the small bright room. In one fluid motion, the woman threw him into a dusty chair at wide, round table, moved a small clock from the mantle to the center of the tablecloth and disappeared into a side room hidden behind a dangling beaded curtain.


More later.

Keep on Tranglin,
Anthony