The Narrow Gate: The Tragic Lives of Shadows

The fat man glows under soft yellow light. Beads of sweat cling to the scalp beneath his thinning hairline. He peers out at me through the open garage door; two souls from distant worlds make contact. There’s a strange wavelength vibrating between us. I’m in view of something he doesn’t want me to see; an unwelcome observer of concealed behaviors.

She steps out from behind him. Jet black hair hangs around her pale white face, a black hoodie wrapped around her tiny frame, barely-there booty shorts and thigh-high boots.

She slumps into the backseat and my Toyota rolls out of the driveway. The garage door closes, locking the fat man back into his alien vortex. She sighs and her relief is palpable. A warm comfort fills the car as I put distance between us and the abyss. I’ve always been highly sensitive to the darker elements. My internal antenna is finely tuned to wicked signals; a type of radar I developed growing up around immoral people.

The conversation begins with the usual niceties: comments about the weather, road conditions, etc. She asks if she can vape in my car while simultaneously taking a long pull from her device. We’re already along that path so I tell her to crack the window.

I ask what she does for a living. She says she works from home.

Prostitutes always have the most radically transparent cover stories for their occupation. I don't know what makes them so improbable. The hooker uniform could easily pass as a fashion choice or a costume for a theme party. Perhaps it's the sense of something missing that gives it away; the unmistakable impression of a fractured spirit deteriorating in the wind. There's a distinct emptiness in their voice. You can hear the cracks forming behind their tired laughter.

The consequences of selling the most coveted parts of yourself. The intangibles that form our humanity disappear. We become silhouettes in the margins; hollow artifacts of where life once thrived.