Chapter Two

I keep my eyes on the pavement. A quick look up, a glance to the side, something stealing my attention away could ruin the effort, so I concentrate on the weeds pushing their way through the void, the rain slithering over my shoes. Almost there. Just a few more steps - eight - and I'll have made it. Home straight. Fourth this week, in fact. Monday was... unavoidable. But if I can make this one, it'll make up for it, and I can sleep easy again tonight. Won't have to think. Seven steps. Six. Five. Four. Nearly there, almost done. Three. Tw-Fuck. Goddamn rain, goddamn shoes, goddamn pavement with its goddamn cracks. I can't move, I just sit and feel the damp spread through my skirt, onto my thighs; stare at the walls pasted over with endless stories of the world gone wrong. I can't even close my eyes, it's too late - the pictures and the prints have seeped through the corneas and imprinted themselves on the canvas of my mind. Death and disease in my dreams tonight.
My fingers find the concrete and take the weight from my ass. Even as I rise, my eyes are stuck fast to the walls ahead of me. It takes six shoulder-barges and a bag in the hip to push me on. I don't need to look down anymore, so I look at the faces instead. Nameless and soulless, they lock their eyes with mine for the three point seven seconds it takes to pass me by.