The Ladies of Horror
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The Stairs Remember Well
by Kim Richards

Oh, the things which took place in that grungy stairwell. So many stolen kisses and caresses in the corner; the lovers ignoring anyone climbing the stairs. Patchouli perfume filled the air. So did the knowing giggles.

Friends sat upon the steps consoling one another after a bad break up with hugs and strong alcohol. Wails echoed off the walls. They washed the floor with their tears; then dirtied it again with vomit.

Someone once wound black and orange crepe paper around the railing in October and placed a pair of leering Jack-O-Lanterns on the floor in that lover’s corner. Someone else added a bouquet of orange and yellow marigolds to the display. Then the light of flickering blood red candles danced across the walls.

Many nights music, heavy thrumming beats, vibrated the walls. Crooning guitar melodies traveled down, echoing in the stairwell. Voices in joyful song, sometimes growling metal lyrics, sometimes repetitive rapping phrases floated along like clouds.

There were celebrations aplenty. Confrontations occasionally. All of the things which happen when humankind interact. The stairwell witnessed it all.

There came a time when protest posters and slogan graffiti covered the walls. Those who put them there, threw open the window and leaned out to shout at the unjust world beyond. Hot anger and despair like ashes made the stairwell an oppressive place to stop so many took the steps as fast as they could with their heads bent low.

The time a predator moved in, blood flowed down the steps like a syrupy waterfall. The fearful moved away. Those unable to leave and despairing the lack of enforcement assistance banded together. There are pockmarks on the walls from the gunfire still. They buried his bruised and broken body in the basement.

As the building aged, so the stairwell became dingy. Often syringes and bits of blackened foil occupied the corner where the pumpkins once stood. Today a body clad in only shredded jeans and one filthy sock slumped at the foot of the stairs next to a discarded Narcan container.

People stumbling down the stairs did not stop to check on him. They stepped around and moved on. If he were alive, none of them had time to spend or the inclination to be involved. They were on a schedule to get out. Out of the stairwell. Out of the building. Out of the city before the next drone strike hit.

Fiction © Copyright Kim Richards
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com