Short Story by Travis Warner

One Night In L.A.

They spoke in foreign tongue as we drove into the night. I was tied
up like the others of my kind in the back of a grey-white van. One
grim-faced and tired looking man sat watch with us. I didn’t know
where I was going and I wasn’t quite sure from where I’d come but I

knew they didn’t want me dead. My best guess was they were only
trying to cover up the trail.

Of a sudden the doors jerked open and I was thrown recklessly from
the vehicle into the early morning. The impact tore at my fibers
leaving me damaged and motionless. It was something I hadn’t
experienced before. I had only heard the stories which seemed to
lilt through the corridors like folklore passed down through
generations. I lay there motionless.

The sky grew light as I lay.

Some hours passed--how many I didn’t know. Slowly the birds began
to chirp, lending hope to my apathy. I was drifting in and out, in
and out, and then, finally, out.



He was staring blankly down at me. No words left his lips. There
was only the soft beating of the lawn sprinklers as they passed back
and forth across his pajamas. By now his coffee was cold but he
didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t seem to notice. All he could do
was
stare.

He seemed unmoved by the story told on my disheveled face. The
blankness consumed him and then me. He seemed to stare back without
sympathy. A hint of boredom and disinterest seemed to flicker across
his face a moment but that was it. Emotionless.

I began to question the humanity of Man. How uncaring and unmoved
he was in the face of tragedy. How unsympathetic he was to the
horrors before him. Murder. Rape. Chaos. Death. These were the
things of which man was made. Not kindness or brotherhood. The
society had been stripped of him. The world had become a
conglomerate of “I”s. There was no unity, no shoulder to shoulder

effort to keep a man sane. No effort to better himself or others.

Here I was the face of tragedy and need lying at the feet of a man
with the power to listen. And yet I seemed to stare back with more
wonder than he. His face changed from boredom to annoyance at the
sight of me. I was but a routine problem in his busy life. He had
better things to do than listen to my story. I didn’t dare break my

stare. My only hope was to penetrate into the depths of this mans
heart and perhaps evoke some semblance of philanthropy.

It seemed a lifetime of silence before the man finally bent down and
grasped me in his hands. He turned and carried me out of the
blinding sun and into the warmth of his home.

“Deloris! Didn’t I tell you to cancel our fucking subscription to

the L.A. Times?! You know I hate the crap they print! Nothing but
bad news and more bad news!”

I was thrown recklessly into the eternal silence of a nearby
wastebasket never to be heard from again.