The Doorway

Street lights clicked on with a low hum as the last evidence of day vanished behind a concrete horizon. A man and woman stood crowded into a doorway, speaking with low voices, confining their speech to the small, claustrophobic space.

Both of their feet were squeezed onto the cement doorstep, hanging precariously close to the edge. One false step and they would be sent tumbling down the steps onto the street, the decaying green rail useless during their descent.

Abandoned cobwebs hung in the corners above them, attached to the flaking paint. A red door stood behind them, faded with age. Few stood in this doorway, its previous owners were long dead, and the cause for their death a most curious circumstance. The shadows cast into this doorway by the streetlights made it a most ominous sight.

The couple’s brows were furrowed, deep in conversation, their faces close together.

“God damn it Jack, I know you have some. It’s in your best interest to share,” the woman hissed, carefully annunciating her last sentence.

“Now there’s no need for that Maryanne. I told you I’d give you some as soon as I could get it,” the man replied, both hands held up in a submissive gesture, the woman quite taller than he.

“How stupid do you think I am?” she said, stepping impossibly closer to the short man. “Word gets around fast Jack. I know a shipment came in Wednesday, and I know he’d come to you with it first. You’re his best customer remember?”

The man pulled the brim of his hat further down his forehead, his eyes now hidden behind a dark shadow. He glanced down at the empty street, scanning the dark doorways across from them.

The woman fidgeted with impatience, clenching and unclenching her knuckles, a thin layer of perspiration forming on her brow, despite the bitter February weather. “If you think for a second that you can fool me, you’re wrong. You owe me Jack, and you’re lucky this is all I want from you,” the woman said, irritation apparent in her voice.

The man stood silent. “The shortages are killing me; I have to have some now, and if you don’t give it to me then I’ll take it from you,” she said with a fierce glare in her eyes.

“Jesus Maryanne, that’s absolutely unnecessary! We are all suffering from the sparse shipments, but no one wants to take the chance of bringing it in after the bust last month,” the man said, his hands beginning to shake. “I have hardly enough for myself let alone you too!”

“Then you’ll have to give me all of it Jack, every last bit. I need it more than you; I’m going crazy… I need it; you have to give me all of it. And if you don’t I’ll take it Jack, by any means necessary, I swear to god.” The woman took hold of the man’s jacket, her knuckles white from the force with which she clenched the material. “I need it more than you do, I need all of it. You owe me!”

The man took a small plastic bag out of his pocket and threw it down the steps onto the street. “Here Maryanne, you deserve this,” he said, an uncharacteristic indifference in his voice.

The woman hurried to make her way down the steps, desperate for the contents within the bag. She had only reached the second step when a loud bang sounded from behind her and with wide eyes she fell down the rest of the steps and onto the street in a lifeless mass.

The man placed something back into his pocket and sauntered down the steps. He picked up the bag he’d thrown and carefully placed the bag back into his coat pocket, a blank expression on his face.

“I owe you nothing,” he said as he turned and made his way down the shadowy street.