The Dark City

I walked the streets of the Dark City aimlessly, hungry and desperate.

I couldn’t see three metres ahead of me; I couldn’t see my trench coat and large hat; I couldn’t see my own fingers as I spread them out in front of me.

How long do I have to live in the Dark City?

The stench drives me to tears.

I sat down and started inevitably to think about how it had all fallen to this.

It wasn’t by free will that I had come to the Dark City. The criminal underworld. In my childhood, I had lived above it; I had lived in the sun and out in the open as a carefree little soul. But three years after my happy birth, things took a change. My mother, working in the kitchen as she was wont to do, and my father, in the garage repairing the car, had not kept a strict eye on me. Someone, maybe a man driving a Ferrari, maybe a woman with a large sunflower hat – they might’ve looked like anybody – stuck their hand onto my clothes and pulled me away from my house. I didn’t know what was happening as a child, so I went calmly with my captor, thinking it was only for a nice trip. Even if I had tried to seek help, I could not have shouted – my vocal cords were damaged from birth and not a sound was destined to come out of me.

And how wrong I was. My body became hardened by days and nights of endless running, for I kept running away from the people who bought me, who sold me, who bought me from the last person who had bought me. My cheeks were red and swollen from the often beating they took. My back was littered with scars my captors had given me. And finally, as I escaped from my fifth home, I met a man in tattered clothes and a strangely new brown trench coat.

“Are you running from people?” he had asked.

Yes, I nodded.

“Come to the Dark City. Come to my house,” he beckoned.

I went. I had been famished and half-dead, the half of my brain that was still alert enough bribed by the thought of a place I could stay in. I didn’t care what the man would do to me. What would he want with a skinny and mute fourteen-year-old boy like me?

How long do I have to live in the Dark City?

My family will miss me.

He took me to the Dark City, but it wasn’t a city. It was simply the system of sewers, dugouts and underground cellars he took me to. But lo and behold – I had a small corner of the cellar to myself, with a tawny blanket thrown over me – and I could have mouldy bread and sometimes the remnants of a can of beans somebody above had thrown away carelessly. I was fed and groomed by my fellow inhabitants, who were all friendly and took pity on me. I loved them, and I loved the Dark City. Michel was the one who had found me, Danisha groomed me, Carol cooked for us, Danny would go onto the streets sometimes and fetch supplies (either stolen or bargained to a low price), Tanis would scout out for other Dark City citizens and check if they were friendly or unfriendly, and Jackdaw was our armed force; he was big as a boulder and could smash anyone who was darned unfriendly. I was their child; all of them were my parents. I was given books, the best food, the best clothes – they pampered me as well as they could, given the conditions, and I would be their face in the upper city; I, with my good clothes, would walk unquestioned on the streets above, and I could sometimes find a job that would earn us money. I could walk the dog, mow the lawn, carry goods and give out newspapers. I was the money-earning adult-child in the group. And we were happy for a long time.

But even in the Dark City, there are light spots and dark spots. I lived in the light spot, where I would not have to worry about rogues, rapists and murdering burglars who dwelt in the darkest of the dark. But when you don’t seek trouble out, it comes to find you.

How long do I have to live in the Dark City?

Will it be over soon?

I still remember every detail vividly; it was three days ago. The sky above leaked sunlight into our very humble abode through the sewer cover. I was out for a job – I think it was walking a labrador for a wealthy lady who was too occupied to walk it, and I would always get tipped handsomely by her. I was on my way back to the cellar and had just stepped over the threshold when I smelt the stench of blood. I knew what had happened. It didn’t shock me a bit, but I was still holding hope when I checked their breaths – but nothing could be done to help. With the last bit of his breath, Jackdaw told me that a group of burglars had tried to steal our money jar, and he’d tried to stop them, but they had guns, and our little family was not a family anymore. I laid him down as his breath faltered. I took up Michel’s trench coat, and I left.

How long do I have to live in the Dark City?

Is there no chance of finding revenge?

No, I never thought of revenge. I hated myself for that, and I had dug my nails into my skin, thinking that I was a coward, a real coward for not finding revenge for my family. But what could I do?

I sighed with my nose, sitting down on a ledge in the sewer under an opening that led in sunlight. I took off the trench coat and looked at one of the edges that were torn from my excursions yesterday in a tunnel with lots of vines. As I peeled the two layers apart, I found that there was something in the linings.

It was money. I stared at it, unmoving, until I saw the edge of something white that wasn’t money.

It was a letter. Michel’s letter. I read it slowly, calmly.

In the letter, he narrated how he’d come to the Dark City and wished that I, his son, would one day be able to leave. It was a handsome sum he’d saved up, maybe from a part-time job he had taken God-knows-when, maybe from the money I distributed to them every week, but at that moment I loved him and loved him fiercely.

I stood up, the sunlight cascading off my face, and I was blinded for a second.

How long do I have to live in the Dark City?

The sky is bright outside and the birds call.

I left the Dark City.