Noir (New York City.

) June 17th 2012

The night is still young, the streets still buzzing with pedestrians. The smell of
exhaust fills the air, the lighted buildings and billboards glow bright red and
orange. Even though the street lights haven’t turned off yet, no sign of night-time
traffic exists. Everything is silent and peaceful. The city itself looks asleep.
Or, perhaps, pretending to sleep in order to escape the morning sun creeping across
the horizon. The early morning sun. The early afternoon sun. The evening sun. At
this hour, the sky is almost always dark, but it doesn’t stop anyone from seeing.
It's late, nearing midnight. He should've stopped hours ago, and he knows it. He
should've called it quits. His car won’t start again, and his battery is dead - he
needs to recharge it before returning home. It is late, after all. Too late to
call. Too late to get help. Too late to turn around and come back here. But he
hasn’t. He doesn’t want to face the reality. Not yet. He has to see her again. He
has to try.
This part of New York, along Central Park West, is still fairly crowded. There are
groups of people, talking, laughing, walking their dogs. Some couples stroll hand
in hand. Others seem lost in their own thoughts. All the activity, the chatter, the
noise, is making Noir’s head spin. He feels nauseous. He tries to focus his gaze on
the woman in front of him, but it’s hard. It’s impossible to forget the words she
said. Words that are echoing in his mind. Words that haunt him every waking moment.
Those were the last thing that made sense to him - the words, the voice, the
expression on the woman’s face as she spoke those same words. It made no sense to
him, and yet, somehow, it seemed… familiar. As if he knew these words, as if he had
heard those exact sounds before. He couldn’t recall exactly when. He couldn’t
remember ever having heard them spoken aloud by anyone besides himself before that
moment. But that was irrelevant. What mattered was what she was telling him. Those
words made him realize something that had never occurred to him -