Aislyn ran away from the art gallery. Her heels clocked with each jogging step as she prayed she wouldn’t bust a strap or the stiletto heel itself. She rounded the corner intot he alley to catch her breath. Leaning her frail forearms on to the frigid brick wall and bending double, she sucked in the cold night air in gasps. Acid rose up her throat, gagging and choking her.
“Pull it together,” Aislyn admonished herself, swallowing the hydrochloric acid and calming her ragged inhalations.
The heap beside the dumpster began to rise from the poorly maintained pavement. Aislyn stepped back from the wall, dusted off her bare forearms and straightened the black linen dress that fell to her knees.
A grey houndstooth coat soon emerged from the pile of rags and discarded construction drop cloths. A young man somewhere between the right to vote and the legal purchase of liquor stepped from the dumpster’s shadow and into the reflected glow of a sodium vapor street lamp.
Aislyn took a step back and steadied herself with one hand on the brick wall. In the alley the mortor hadn’t been as carefully maintained as the building façade.
Photo: CurtisJames
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