Finally.. Blog number 7

He opened his eyes and shifted from the empty darkness into the shallow darkness of night.
It was now very late, but the streets were still filled with sounds of confusion and drunken revelry. Murray wondered how long he had been there, lying on the street. The side of his face was covered with dried blood and his head felt like it was being driven over by a semi-truck. There was another crowd gathering around the entrance of the library. There were men carrying a big black object out on a plank of some kind. Murray figured there was some kind of bar-b-que going on. His body was aching. He began to see her face again. He suddenly felt very tired and because he had to get back to feed Rumples, who had been left unattended for a few days, he turned away from the strange gathering. After all, he had to take care of his only friend.

He had been quiet.
She hadn't seen his face.
Everything went as he had calculated.
Yet, Murray couldn't help but wonder if a muffled sound had leaked through the heavy hand that he held so tightly over her mouth.

Murray opened his eyes and he was back in his apartment.
This new girl had helped him to get his mind off of the dark-haired girl, if only for a minute.
He cracked the window when he saw the rain falling against it. Murray sat in his armchair and began to rock back and forth out of anxiety. He grabbed his last cigarette with trembling hands.
He coughed as he fumbled for his lighter.

He dreaded going out in the rain. It was falling harder and faster now, and he needed to go to the store.

He stepped out into the cold rain wearing his sweatshirt and the jean-jacket he stole at a thrift store. The streets were full of people. In the complete silence, they looked like wild animals. Crawling, jumping, and pushing to get a better view of whatever it was they were all looking at.
Murray fought his way into the crowd and craned his neck to see above them.
He saw women jumping up and down around a big fire and what he saw next made that fire look like a candle flame. The mosque was burning. Even the elderly men and women were helping to salvage the books and various ornaments that the fire had yet to destroy. Murray tried to push his way through the crowd. A man screamed at Murray to stop shoving. Murray, of course, did not hear his threats. The man became frustrated when Murray continued to push.
Suddenly all went black.
Murray was on the ground. Blood was running from his nose and his left ear. The crowd continued to push forward as Murray laid on the ground, bleeding in silence.

Big Dolla

Murray woke up at four this morning. Every time he would drift off to sleep, she was there.
Watching. Smiling. He couldn't get her out of his head.
He had a feeling that he was going to hurt her.

Murray sat on his tattered armchair and sighed as he finished his third cup of coffee.
He looked down at the street to see a chicken running across Katz avenue.
Murray rubbed his furrowed brow in a mix of confusion and curiosity. He patted Rumples roughly on the head and grabbed a gray sweatshirt as he walked out of the door.
After locking the door and checking it twice, Murray bounded down twelve flights of stairs and stepped outside onto the corroding sidewalk.
The chicken was gone.
Murray crossed Katz avenue in search of the bird. He walked down a dirty service road and stopped suddenly at a strange sight.
There were three chickens standing on a pile of wood next to a large abandoned building.
The birds were staring at Murray, bobbing their necks back and forth.
Murray walked slowly towards the largest of the three.
He swiped at the bird in a futile attempt to capture it.
The chicken flapped its wings vigorously in response, sending the other two birds flying. The large bird flew at Murray and its sharp talons met the left side of his face.
He cursed and held his hand to his cheek, which was bleeding.
He shuffled down Mercy Road toward the Big Dolla.
He pulled open the heavy glass door and stepped onto the store's dirty linoleum tile.
Murray nervously glanced around the store. He walked over to the aisle that held generic bandages and various low grade beauty supplies. He grabbed the only unopened box of bandages he could find and carried it over to the register. He stood in line behind a large man who was wearing a sweatband and a crooked smile.
Murray dropped the box at the register. The cashier opened and closed her mouth.
Murray stared at the smeared red lipstick on her plump lips.
He forced a smile and hoped she wasn't asking any questions.
Her eyes were a pale gray color and her hair was blonde.
Without taking his eyes off the girl's round face, Murray reached into his back pocket and pulled out a five dollar bill that he had found in the hallway of Wilshire Tower a few days earlier.
He placed the bill in the her hand, as she gestured to his cheek with her other.
He shook his head and pointed to his ears. This is why he didn't like to go out.
Murray assumed that she didn't understand because she kept opening and closing her mouth.
He let his eyes fall off her face and onto other parts of her body. He noticed a pack of cigarettes in the front pocket of her tight jeans and an idea came to him.
He smiled at the young girl and walked out of the store with the box of bandages.
He would go around back and wait for her to come out for a smoke.
He would be quiet. Noone would hear.

Mold

The apartment smelled like mold. Rain makes everything smell like mold. Murray looked out the window at Katz ave.
This town looks like mold.. smells like mold.
He needed to get out.
It has been raining a lot lately, but today the sky was clear.
Murray stepped out of his small, lonely apartment. He needed to go to the liquor store, but didn't want to risk running into the girl.
He walked down the grungy stairs counting as he went.
The sun was setting.
Murray looked down Mercy Road at flashing lights and a line of anxious-looking people that stretched from the library to the bowling alley. He had never seen this many people out on the street before. Murray began to walk towards the crowd, but stopped when he realized something very important.
The city was empty; all of its inhabitants stood in a long line eagerly awaiting for what Murray assumed to be a traveling circus due to the strange creatures wobbling around under colored lights.
He began to run down Katz Avenue, but he ran out of steam after a few yards and instead pulled out a cigarette and walked down the road. He turned down Dusty Bluff and stared at the large ornate building on his left.
Some kind of church
Murray stopped at the intersection of Dusty Bluff and Back Street.
He looked to the left and saw nothing of interest.
He then looked right and continued walking.
This was the first time that Murray had been to this part of town in the six months, one week, and five days that he's lived here.
Keeping count stops the days from blending together into gray mush.
Murray tries to stay away from the people of this town as much as possible.
Not out of pride or fear, but because of past experiences.
Murray began to feel worried; he didn't want to go too far from his apartment or run into the girl, so he decided to cut through an alley. As the last glimpses of sunlight fell onto the city, Murray picked up a rock and tossed it from one hand to the other.
He spun around and threw the stone across the road at a rotting building.
He felt better.
Murray picked up another rock, larger than the first, and threw it as hard as he could. It smashed through a window in the empty building and Murray laughed. He wondered what his laugh sounded like; probably thick and slurred.
Murray suddenly saw movement to his right. He turned to see a slightly overweight policeman running towards him. The policeman was red in the face, and Murray noticed that the man's left shoelace was untied.
Murray turned and sprinted down the alley. His surroundings blurred. His chest felt heavy; his feet were light. He saw the lights of the circus. They grew stronger with each step. He cut behind D&D and continued to run in the darkness.
Back in his small apartment, Murray rewarded himself with a cigarette.

Her

Murray stepped under the luke-warm water that was spraying from the shower head. He tried to scrub away the lingering smell of smoke and alcohol. He couldn't stop thinking about her and he knew it wasn't good. Didn't work out so well last time.
Murray collapsed onto his bed and buried his face in its tangled sheets. Rumples gingerly walked over from the opposite side of the bed and laid down so that his nose was almost touching Murray's.
He was worried. Her thin face appeared every time he shut his eyes. Pressing his palms into his eyes, Murray let out a sigh. He walked over to the window and pulled hard at the stubborn lower sash of the old wooden frame. It didn't budge. He blamed it on the humidity and flipped on the small fan in the kitchen. Then lit a cigarette in an attempt to calm his thoughts. He needed an escape. He was worried.

It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf. (Walter Lippmann)

Murray sat on his torn arm chair, looking out of the sole window of his apartment. He could tell that today would be a bad one; the silence was beginning to make him anxious already. The gray icy mixture that covered Mercy Road and its surrounding area made everything look more depressing than usual.

Pulling a gray sweatshirt over his head, Murray stepped into the hallway and almost tripped over a little kid who was being swallowed up by an over-sized suit.

He is always alone. Dangerous in this place..

Murray took the stairs. He figured if he exercised he could smoke more. Murray stepped outside and lit a cigarette to combat the cold air.

A girl walking ahead of him caught his eye. She was dirty, but sort of pretty. He decided to follow her. As she slithered down the sidewalk, Murray became captivated by her dark hair and bulky jacket.

He smelled a sharp odor. Alcohol.

Murray turned into the liquor store and found a small bottle of SeaGram Gin. He fumbled for the four crumpled dollar bills that were hiding deep in his pocket..

Murray Howard

Murray Howard slipped his hands into the front pockets of his worn-in jeans, as he stumbled down the sidewalk. Murray opened the door of the D&D liquor store, slowly walked inside, and grabbed the first alcoholic drink he found. Looking at the ground, Murray placed the bottle of vodka on the counter with a heavy hand.
"And a carton of Basics," Murray mumbled to the cashier.
While leaving the store, Murray accidentally bumped into a blurry figure. The stranger's face turned red as he opened his mouth wide at Murray, bearing his gleaming, yellow teeth.
Back in his apartment, Murray dropped his purchases on his chair and laid down on his bed. As he drifted off to sleep, he began to hear the faint sound of a woman laughing and the whistling of a tea pot.
Murray awoke to dainty paws kneading on his forehead. Rumples knew this as the best way to wake Murray up, because he had found meowing to be useless. Murray noticed that Rumples' scruffy gray hair was in need of brushing. Murray rubbed his eyes and oozed out of bed. He sauntered over to the kitchen and reached up to grab a metal cereal bowl from the cabinet. It fell to the floor. Murray watched the metal bowl as it hit the floor and wished he could hear the noise.