Conspicious Consumption on The Street

As the sun started it inexorable slide down, between the towering sky scrapers standing like walls along the streets on the island of Manhattan, the daily late afternoon ritual began.

Like cattle, making their way down the chute, toward the final thump of the air gun just above and between the eyes, denizens of those same towers exited on the ground and basement floors and moved steadily along their designated routes. No eye to eye contact, no joyous chatter at being freed from their pen ‘til the next day, only a steady, straight ahead movement to the same destination they had every afternoon, the subway turnstile, the Checker Cab stand, the entrance to the parking garage, by the tens and hundreds, by the thousands and tens of thousands they paced patiently to their intermediate destination, to stand in line for something they wouldn’t remember in the morning.

For they were addicted, these chasers of the American Dream, addicted to the pleasures of needle sharp fangs, dripping with narcotic saliva, as they were applied to the inside of their left arms at the way stations along their route home, or to the eateries, theaters, and bars at which they would eat and drink, to replace the precious fluids and nutrients that had been delicately removed from their bodies, removed to satiate the ravening hunger of their overlords.

Mostly delicately that is, except for those occasional times when the hunger could not be satisfied with only a sip, or a mouthful, and the beast within came rampaging to the surface and instead of a slight sting and refreshed forgetfulness, they would be dragged to the ground and fed upon furiously, greedily, by beings with the instincts of packs of hyenas on the plains of Africa, consumed like the herd animals they were, their absence noted, if at all, by only a mild question in the memory of the rest of the herd, when one of their number didn’t show up at the designated time and place on the morning after.


He watched from the tops of the towers, hi-powered glasses at his eyes, just as he watched every evening…………..