Tw - mild violence, references to death
Prompt: "There's an urban legend that's been circulating for years about a taxi that doesn't take you where you want to go, but where you need to go. One night, you step into this cab."
I stood on the curb, head resting on my hands, shivering at every passing breeze slinking under my tattered t-shirt. Apart from the lonely crickets, the world had finally gone to sleep, abandoning me to my thoughts. A dangerous predicament as my mind wandered to far-off places my body simply could not follow.
I couldn't feel anything, let alone believe it was real. A part of me denied it all, but deep inside I knew it was true and there was no escape. No one was going to help me get out of the hole I had dug for myself and why would they? The bullet had pierced my forearm and somehow found a way to exit, leaving my muscles to scream in pain as the bullet wound began healing on its own. If I went to the hospital, they'd soon find out what I had done and, even if it weren't truly my fault, the other shoe would drop, swift and merciless, on the insect they thought I embodied.
This is what I got for running around with the wrong people. A bullet through the arm and a dead…friend. I just…I couldn't say it, no matter who would ask me.
The screech of tires interrupted my thoughts. I lifted my head to look at a taxi, crawling around the dark street, searching for customers who had already gone to sleep. The driver's face was obscured by the car's headlights, but I could see whoever he or she was, they were wearing a grey hoodie and a pair of sunglasses to hide their face. I engineered my way up with the certainty I had to go somewhere; I didn't know where, but I couldn't stay on that curb all night, wounded and freezing. I didn't need to wave it down; the taxi stopped beside me. I got into the backseat, heaving, and straining not to scream when my forearm chafed against the leather seats.
There was a screen between the driver and the customer, the kind of screen wealthy people decorate their limousines with.
"Where to?" The driver asked, and judging by the gruff undertone, I guessed I was dealing with a man, probably in his mid-forties.
Despite the glass pane between us, his voice rang clear.
"Baker Street, number 3, please," I groaned, resting my head on the cool window, watching the taxi speed up through the empty streets.
I closed my eyes, feeling the taxi veer underneath me, spitting exhaust fumes whenever the turn was too tight and the driver, instead of slowing down, abruptly accelerated. I don't think the driver ever stopped at headlights and, honestly, I was glad for it. I was wanted to go home and slink into my warm bed, forgetting I was trapped in a nightmare. At some point, I might have even dozed off, lulled to sleep by the jazz music coming from the radio.
When I woke up, we were parked on another deserted street – not the one I had told him to go to – and the driver had left. My mind played all these horror movie scenarios with silhouettes emerging from the shadows, opening the car doors, and dragging me out to feast on my brain; there were a few moments when my heart ran wild and I was worried the feds had gotten to me already and this was all some ploy to scare me to get a confession out faster. But there was no one around so, without any other viable option, I decided to scout my surroundings. Like any normal person would do, I let my curiosity lead me out from the darkness into a pool of sodium light.
Thank God for electricity. Even though I was pretty sure he had had nothing to do with it.
I squinted at the gloomy houses, trying to discern any plaques with street names written on them. I didn't dare get any closer, lest I wake someone up and have cops come sniffing about for a supposed thief.
The taxi's headlights turned off, drowning half the street into pitch black, and half scaring me to death. I whirled around, wishing desperately I had a weapon on me. Not necessarily a gun; I would have been content even with keys or something I could jab into my attacker's eye sockets. Violence had never truly been in my nature; not until a bullet had flown in my arm, missing its true target: my head.
"What are you doing here all alone?"
A woman was staring at me, her head wrapped tightly in a scarf. A niqab, I guessed. Her tiny dog, a chihuahua, balked at me, unsure whether to run, bark, or go straight for the kill.
I stared back, my mouth agape. My manners have never been the best.
The woman smiled, or at least I think she did.
"Are you lost?"
I shook my head, unable to articulate coherent thoughts, not when the chihuahua's eyes were turning red.
"Oh, my," she sighed, "Jerome brought you here, didn't he?"
"Jerome?" I asked, my brain puzzling the name and the taxi driver together.
"He must have had a good reason to bring you here."
"Is he the taxi driver who abandoned me?" I struggled to form a sentence, pretty proud of myself at the result.
The woman laughed, "Yes, I suppose you could say he did that." Her eyes drifted to my forearm and she gasped. "You're hurt."
Before I knew what was going on, her fingers were clutching my arm and she was inspecting the wound, unconcerned with blood flowing out and staining the pavement.
How long had I been bleeding for, anyway? Everything seemed so…unreal. Even the woman looked more like a figment of my imagination than a real person, worried for my wellbeing more than my family ever had been.
"Oh, my poor baby, what did they do to you?" She let my arm go and pulled me into a hug.
In all honesty, what would you guys do if some stranger suddenly embraced you in the middle of a deserted street? It must have been like 3 am.
I screeched; that's what anyone would do, especially after getting shot. I also ran, my flight or fight instincts finally kicking in, a rush of adrenaline making everything seem so real and so dangerous, I had to put some distance between me and her. I didn't get very far because I stumbled and fell on my face.
"Oh my God, are you alright?" She rushed to help me, but I pushed her away.
Why would anyone try to help me? I certainly didn't deserve it, not after sticking that knife in Marjorie's throat. The worst part wasn't me killing her. I hadn't even tried to help her and when I went for the ones responsible, I failed miserably.
"It's okay, no one is trying to hurt you." She hauled me up and slapped me. "Don't ever do that again, you hear?"
My cheek hurt but I nodded. I was in the middle of nowhere with a strange woman whose face – actually her whole body – was covered up. All I could discern were her eyes, two pools of the darkest ink man had created.
I grabbed the scarf around her head and began pulling at it. She let me without even attempting to stop me as if she knew I would not rest until I unearthed this secret. Underneath, Marjorie's face smiled.
"Hi, George."
I should have known. She had been a Muslim. And that chihuahua had eaten away my trainers for years.
"Mary?"
My eyes teared up and I choked on words I should have told her, but never got the chance to, on feelings I had never confessed. It was a dream; it had to be. She was dead.
"Yes, sweetie, it's me."
"But how?"
She pulled me back into her arms and we hugged for the longest of times. I didn't want to let go. I couldn't let go.
"Jerome brings people where they need to go the most. As it turns out, you needed to see me."
I hid my face in her niqab and cried.
"It's okay, George. You need to let me go. It wasn't your fault, remember? You didn't stick that knife in me."
"I might as well have."
"No, darling, don't say that. We were in it together, till death do us part."
She broke the hug, her hands cupping my cheeks. We looked at each other, drinking in every detail. It would be the last time I would see her, I felt it in my stomach. One should never distrust what they feel inside their gut.
"I will always be with you. Here," she pointed to my heart, "and in here," she pointed to my head. "You should go now, or else you will be trapped in this world forever."
I pressed my lips against hers, drinking in her honey smell, reveling in it like a bumblebee spreading pollen as it helped tiny bulbs grow into flowers. We had created life together, but we had also taken it.
I let go of her, pushed her away. It was the only way I would survive. But, at the very least, I finally got to say goodbye.