Souls passing hither in the muggy evening hardly took notice of one another in the elegiac streets, eyes dour and silted like a chapel pane gone too long between cleanings. Corpses rose and walked, rawboned, cadaverous frames meandering shakily beneath the gritty hang of the day’s wash, feet slipping amid discarded leavings; meals left to deteriorate, left to the colonies of vermin that flooded the alleys after nightfall.
The acrid black smog sifted up from lit lamp wicks slithered heavily towards the rising moon, the scent masking the bitter ammonia of urine and bile emanating from the adobe shacks and dicey brothels. Too many scents assaulted the delicate senses, even those who called the place home wiping a watery tear of discomfort away from grime-stained cheeks. Amid all odiferous plethora of skin and perspiration a single strand, a gossamer thread wavered, a scent tinged not by the stink of poverty.
A dire grimace formed beneath the curve of tightened lips, the cupid’s bow forced flat. Obai’s expression was one of repugnance, teeth gritted against the less than picturesque scene that had unfolded. Leagues had passed under blistered heels, crusade seeming less than practical now that his destination had been reached, price to lofty to pay.
Marl and grime caked beneath curved fingernails was hefted loose, brown grit crumbling, falling to the ground and beaten underfoot as the man walked. Mind and thoughts were absent, as lost as the poor souls that wandered the gray and muggy alleyways. Slothfully Obai shuffled, emerald gaze locked upon the litter peppered silt, unwilling to peer down the side streets, uneager to sample the debauchery spewed by the slums.
Like an ill-used hound he knelt in the dampening row, scabbed, ragged knees pressed against the stone, no doubt the sickly wash of bruises forming beneath the expensive cloth. His angled jaw was set harshly, concentration evident on his face, in the crease of his brow. Obai was cowed. On hand and knees he sketched in the flat, faded lamp light, groping in the dark, seeking something solid to hold onto.
Change was the only truth. And here, as he set his piteous eyes upon his fallen idol, Obai began to loathe it. Beneath the washed glowering of oil lamps he bowed his brow parallel with the sopping cobblestone, eyes brimming with reverence. He paused in his depicting, the piece of chalk out of his pocket and beginning to melt into his sweating palm.
Obai reached out with the fulcrum of chalk delicately, hovering; waiting. Drawing a thick crescent, he ground the chalk to and fro, sliding to his left and kept sketching. If the thick scent roiling on the horizon was any indication, the rain would soon come and wash his work away, smear the cool white against the dirty grit of paving stones. Everything was quiet save the scripting of crumbling chalk.