Tyler deMey

Doing Laundry

I ran. Fast. The cascading darkness of the city streets blurred past as I set an unnatural pace. Only the shine of a few decrepit streetlamps, flickering intermittently, exposed my surroundings as I dodged turned over garbage cans and boxes of God knows what. I knew these streets well, as I had walked home through them a few hundred times, but this time was different, this time I was running, and this time I was being chased. My lungs worked like a bellows, moving swaths of air in and out, trying to keep up with my legs. The adrenaline coursing through my veins reigned paramount over my body keeping me moving forwards. Logic and will had abandoned me, as fear consumed my mind and the animal instincts of fight or flight ruled. And for a 24-year-old, five foot nothing, female in a, shall we say, substantially seedy part of town picked flight every time. As I approached an alley to my right, I paused a moment, partly to catch my breath, which had long ago escaped me, and partly to check if my pursuers were still hot on my tail. I looked back and saw light bouncing up and down off the walls of the building I had just passed and heard voices and the heavy breath of at least three men. I looked down at what I towed in my left arm, which was burning from the weight of a large cylindrical black duffle bag bulging on all sides from its contents. I took one last lengthy inhale and darted down the alley.