Garfield Wiles was thirteen, and taking his little sister Eunice into the city to help her buy a Christmas gift for their mother.
The lights of the city made the eyes, the windows of the soul, into train windows, and the soul found it difficult to read in the passing changes of illumination. The sky was dark above the lights, and a thin mist was just heavy enough to fall like minute snowflakes. The crowd also was thin but heavy.

There was a light clatter ahead of them. Something long had dropped from beneath the dark mantle of a man walking some yards further on, and no one else was noticing. Garfield ran to take up the thing, and called out to its owner:

“Hey! Sir, your stick fell down!”

The man continued walking, perhaps thinking the shout was meant for another. Garfield shouted again, and began to run after the man. His feet made a gritty sound on the wet pavement, and very soon he slipped. To keep from hurting the stranger’s rod, he took his fall on one hand, scratching his palm badly. Though only on the ground for a moment, when he looked around the man in the mantle was not to be seen. Eunice was by his side, staring at the thing he held.

“What is that?” she asked.

To be continued.

#WrittenOOM #GarfieldWiles 2023/12/20