New Boots

The tops of the cold, lifeless buildings buried themselves deep into the blackness of the sky. Somewhere in the city a window broke, voices screamed and an engine roared and faded into the distance. No sirens followed, they never did anymore, not like when I was a boy.

Charly sat alone under the flickering light of a street lamp. Smoke rose from her cigarette but was soon lost in the smog, which hung like a thick mist beneath the dull yellow street lighting.
A man turned the corner and proceeded along the wide footpath on the other side of the desolate street, at first not noticing the girl further up the road, probably just discarding her as another pile of rubbish. His footsteps echoed off the expanse of concrete and pierced the silence of the night.
Passing a deserted and destroyed car he raised his head. He had noticed a slight movement up ahead. Charly’s hand moved from her face, which was ducked down towards the ground and smoke passed up through her shoulder length, dirty-blonde hair. As he slowed, straightening his jacket, wiping his face with his sleeve, slicking back his greasy grey-black hair and practising a sickly charming smile, I moved silently from my perch to a point just above the street-lights dim glare.
The man reached the point directly opposite her but still she did not acknowledge his presence. He stopped and faced her. Taking a final drag, she dropped the cigarette butt and scraped it into the ground with her large black boots, no laces, just pieces of string holding them together where the stitching had come undone.
The man just stood and stared as Charly reached into her pocket, pulled out another cigarette and lit a match. The warm glow discovered her face, so young, so pure. The tobacco crackled and glowed red, taking with it the light of the match and once again her face was darkened by smoke and shadow. She flicked away the crippled matchstick, still ignoring the glare of the man across the road.
“Hey,” he spoke softly, seemingly scared of the somehow sacred silence, afraid of what might happen when he broke it.
Nothing.
The girl just watched the smoke twist and morph into eerie shapes and images before melting away. The man looked edgy and his breathing had become heavier.
“Hey, little girl!” he continued.
For a man of his size he seemed quite unnerved by the mute and kept his distance. He left long pauses in his speech, perhaps praying for some kind of response.
“Are you ok?” he asked, attempting a show of sincerity. He waited for a response but still nothing came.
He waited, sighed, then began to walk on. He took three steps and stopped. Once again he turned back to her. Something had changed. There was a darkness in his eyes which was as common now as the vermin which roamed the streets. I raised my arm and focussed the sights of my rifle straight at his head.
“Look,” he said, his voice more relaxed. “I’ve got fifty pounds in my pocket and a safe warm place for you to stay the night.” His hands fidgeted with frustration as he twisted and untwisted the strap of the bag slung over his shoulder. “I mean,” he hesitated, unsure that he really meant what he was saying. “Uh, if you’re interested that is.” She looked up at him and a hint of red encroached on his otherwise greyed face. He sank into his work shirt like a turtle into its shell. “Are you interested?” He asked, avoiding eye contact with the young girl.
She stood slowly, dropped her cigarette, scraped it into the concrete then leaned against the lamp post, arms tucked into her over-sized heavy jacket. The man approached cautiously. Charly remained silent, she had always been good at that and this poor man had no idea how dangerous that silence was… he soon would.
He stopped five feet away from her. She reached into her pocket and drew another cigarette. As she did a scarlet cloth fell to the floor between her and the man. She ignored it, struck a match and lit the cigarette. He stepped closer and stooped down to one knee to retrieve the cloth. On closer inspection he noticed that it should have been white. It was stained… with blood. He looked up into the barrel of a gun pointed at his head. She gave a twisted smile as he tried to retreat backwards on his hands and feet along the glass covered street.
“No, please no, don’t!” he pleaded.
With one smooth step forward she pinned his foot to the floor under her heavy boot, thrust the gun forward and watched as the man perspired in front of her, too scared to even breathe.
Then she spoke.
Her voice was soft, yet serious.
“Never beg for something you will never own.”
BANG!
The shot rang out for what seemed an eternity, its echo so loud it even drowned out the screams of pain for a short while. The man lay there shaking, white and sweating as he clutched his stomach, blood seeping between his fingers. He desperately gasped for the polluted, life giving air.
“Creep!” Charly hissed as she spat at the man. She picked up the cloth and wiped her face and gun clean before placing it back inside her jacket. She checked his pockets and found a wallet. Opening it she drew thirty pounds.
“So much for fifty pounds! You’re a liar as well as a coward!” she screamed at him, kicking him in the head and in the ribs.
Blood leaked like oil from the corner of his mouth. The only expression of his pain was a feeble cough.
“And to think I was going to release you from this hole quickly! Not now,” she laughed “Oh no, you’re not gonna be dead for a good few hours yet! No sir! You’ve gotta put up with this life for all that time, thinkin’ about what you wish you’d done,” her shouting softened to a whisper and her psychotic smile faded, “what you wish you hadn’t!” A pause. She forced a laugh. “Regrets! Oh yes… regrets,” She paused again. I had been with her through out her life, witnessed her mistakes, her losses and victories. I like to believe I could see what she saw in that moment as she mused upon her own life. Then, shaking away those thoughts, she chuckled and the smile returned, “I suppose you know all about them now, don’t you?”
A tear rolled down the man’s quivering face and washed away a single line of the blood smeared across his cheek. His head dropped back on the hard broken ground and he stared up at the flickering light of the street lamp.
Charly walked away, leaving him there to face his dying moments alone. What could I have done? Trying to save him then was as futile as trying to stop Charly from committing the act in the first place. As soon as Charly was far away enough not to hear I released a single, silenced bullet in to the man’s head… living was painful enough for all of us, dying didn’t have to be.

Charly walked towards a large, concrete building with ‘THE SHOP’ spray-painted in six-foot red letters above the entrance. Two huge men dressed in makeshift armour, holding guns at least the size of Charly, stood either side of the door-less archway. She walked past them without even flinching.
I didn’t have to follow her in there. It was the safest place in the whole of the city and if there were any other way in or out, only the old man who owned and ran the place would have known about it.
A few minutes passed and she walked out again. She was holding a box. She walked faster than normal, almost afraid, not for herself but for the parcel she held in her arms. I followed, as was my duty, jumping from rooftops to windows and swinging across streets, silent and invisible.
We approached Charly’s current residence. Checking to make sure no one was watching she removed a panel from the wall to reveal a hole. She ducked and slipped into it, replacing the panel behind her.
I climbed to my makeshift home. High in the rooftops, it was more like a nest but it was perfect for me. I had moved most of my belongings there; a small tape player with earphones, some of my favourite music, a selection from my library of books and a picture of my mother. Behind that was a picture of Charly but I never had to look at it; the reason I had chosen this spot was so I could keep a constant watch over her.
I watched her window. It was still dark. She was obviously making her way up the many flights of stairs and along the many corridors. Moments later a soft glow came from her room as she lit a candle. She placed it on the table and sat in her chair by the window. Charly opened the box, which she had placed carefully on her lap. Folding back the old newspaper, she carefully examined the contents. She smiled, reached in and pulled out an almost-new pair of boots.
She peeled her old boots off, throwing them, tatty and worn, into the corner of the room. Still smiling she heaved the new boots onto her feet, looked at them tenderly then pulled a ragged old blanket over herself, blew out the candle and drifted off to sleep.

Night soon became dawn, dawn became dusk, and dusk faded quickly into night again… just as it always did.